MEXICO CITY (AFP) -- Twenty-one police officers from drug infested Tijuana, on the border of U.S. state of California, were indicted Sunday for collaborating with the notorious Tijuana drug cartel, the Attorney General's Office said.

Arrested in November, the 21 suspects -- 19 municipal and two federal cops -- have been charged with ""organized crime and crimes against public health"" in their dealings with the Tijuana cartel, the official said.
Meanwhile, in the north-central state of Chihuahua, bordering the U.S. state of Texas, 11 people were slain in ongoing drug violence in the past 24 hours, police said.
Most visible were the execution-style killings of a 45-year-old man and his 15-year-old nephew who lived in the United States and were visiting relatives in Ciudad Juarez, and a pair of youths riddled with bullets outside a bar in the same city.
The Mexican government has deployed more than 36,000 troops across the country as part of a clampdown on drug trafficking and related violence launched in early 2006.
Despite some high-profile arrests of cartel leaders and corrupt officials, more than 5,300 people died in drug-related attacks in 2008, over double the previous year, according to official figures.
Nearly half the murder victims were slain in Chihuahua state.
Mexico has overtaken Colombia and Iraq in the number of kidnappings, with more than 1,000 officially reported in 2008. Human rights groups believe unreported kidnappings push the figure closer to 3,000.