A Madhya Pradesh court has sentenced four Maoist rebels to life imprisonment for murdering the state's former transport minister Likhi Ram Kanwre in 1999.

The additional district and sessions judge of a lower court in Balaghat Monday convicted Bhaiya Lal, Chait Ram, Arjun and Parvati Bai for killing Kanwre.

According to a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) statement, the four guerrillas killed the former minister in revenge for the death of four rebels in a gun battle with police in the Thadicherla reserve forest of Andhra Pradesh.

"In order to take revenge for the killing of four Maoist rebels by Andhra Pradesh Police, the accused entered into a criminal conspiracy to eliminate a top ranking government functionary," said the statement from the CBI which probed the killing.

The CBI, which took over the case in February 2000, said the four Maoist rebels and others stormed Kanwre's house in Sonpuri village, dragged him out and hacked him to death.