MEXICO CITY – The bodies of five people who appear to have been tortured were found on a highway in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, while the bodies of two police officers were discovered inside their patrol car in another part of the state, prosecutors said.

The five bodies were found Wednesday under a bridge on the Siglo XXI highway in the Costa Grande region, with the victims ranging in age from 25 to 35, the Guerrero Attorney General’s Office said in a statement.

The victims, who were found after police received an anonymous tip, had been beaten, blindfolded and shot in the head, the AG’s office said.

Several messages were left with the bodies by the presumed killers, the AG’s office said.

The bodies of two state police officers, meanwhile, were found in the city of Taxco de Alarcon.

Officers Agustin Barrera Gutierrez and Jose Manuel Ruiz Guillen were assigned to a unit in the city, the AG’s office said.

Guerrero Gov. Angel Aguirre Rivero launched a security operation last year with the support of the federal government to improve security in the southern state.

“Operation Safe Guerrero” was launched on Oct. 6, 2011, in an effort to reduce the soaring crime rate in the state.

The wave of drug-related violence in the state has been blamed on a turf war between rival cartels.

President Felipe Calderon declared war on Mexico’s drug cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006.

Calderon has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers and Federal Police officers across the country to combat drug cartels and other criminal organizations.

The use of the armed forces to fight drug traffickers, however, has failed to stem the violence.

Unofficial tallies put the death toll from Mexico’s drug war at more than 50,000. EFE