Rio, May 6 (AFP) Brazilian police shot dead eight people in one of Rio de Janeiro's biggest slums on Monday, an official said, just days after figures showed a record number of killings by state officers in the first quarter.

"We confirm that eight suspects were killed in an operation in Mare," a police spokesman told AFP.

No other details about the operation in Mare -- a poor, densely populated swathe of the city in large part run by heavily-armed drug traffickers -- were immediately available.

The operation comes after the state Institute for Public Safety released figures on Friday showing 434 people were killed during "police intervention" in the first three months -- a 17.9 per cent increase as compared with the same period in 2018.

That is the highest quarterly figure since record keeping of police-related killings began in 1998. (AFP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)