Chintalnad:
It is quiet now along the banks of the Sabri River, no telltale evidence of what transpired just a short walk from here in the thick Chintalnad Forest on Monday.
That afternoon, a few villagers were walking past and saw a group of Naxals gathered on the river bank. A little girl, ten years old, lingered, intrigued perhaps by what she saw.
The Naxals spotted her and debated what to do. Would she tell the police about them if they ignored her? Unwilling to take the chance, they picked her up and carried her several kilometers up the river. There, they set her down. And that's where they were spotted last, say villagers.
So where are they know? The river was most likely their exit route. The Sabri River virtually divides Orissa and Chattisgarh.
Intelligence agencies believe that here, along the river, the Naxal attackers split into three groups, each with a hundred members. The first entered the Palamchalama forest in Andhra; the second melted into the dense forests of Dornapal in Chhattisgarh; and the third crossed over to Malkangiri in Orissa, a zone totally dominated by the Naxals, and it is this area that is going to increasingly be the focus of the government's operations in this part of the Red Corridor of Naxal power.
In the last two years, nearly 300 jawans have lost their lives in anti-Naxal operations in Orissa.
Village 91 is known by a number and not a name because it's one of the refugee resettlement colonies, providing shelter first for those who crossed over from Bangladesh during the 1965 Indo-Pak War, and then again during the 1971 Bangladesh war.
Children work at cycle shops for hours. Decades have passed, but families here still live like refugees. In this widespread poverty and underdevelopment, the Maoists are in charge.
"I live in fear because suddenly they come ask for money. They ask for food. They said, make food for us. If we don't listen to them, they create trouble,'' says Debnath, a resident.
A few kilometres away, in Madanguda, Mahesh does not go to school. He works in a brick kiln. Government apathy to acute poverty has meant the Maoists have become the only administration in the region.
A resident says, "There is no power supply. We get only four litres of kerosene every month. It is very difficult. We need power, water, doctors.''
The mountain ranges, the dense forests, the river have all given the Naxals the cover they need. To counter them on the ground will mean navigating not just unfamiliar terrain but the distrust of the locals who have been left to fend for themselves for so long that it no longer matters which side is correct. In these parts, there is little to celebrate. Sometimes, an affiliation, however small or forced, with the team that has the upper hand can be as much a psychological necessity as a practical one.