Karimnagar:
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram may have said Operation Greenhunt is an invention of the media, but for people living in the shadows of Maoist territory, fear has become a very real, eternal companion.
Karimnagar district of Andhra Pradesh shares the border with Naxal-affected districts of Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra.
Residents of Ambatpally scatter and disappear as soon as they spot any car entering their village, thinking it to be a police vehicle.
"Questions will be asked why we are hanging around as a group,'' says Suresh, a villager.
The laughter barely hides the underlying fear. This area in Karimnagar district was a hardcore Naxal land till 2005 when a police offensive pushed the Naxals out.
But now reports of Operation Greenhunt and Maoist incursion to this side of the Godavari has once again made this place a tinderbox. The last few weeks have brought back forgotten fears.
"They can commit offence there and escape here, or commit offence here and escape there. With so much of police, CRPF, greyhounds in the jungle, anything could happen anytime,'' says Rama Rao, a senior journalist.
Posters of Maoists wanted by the police have come up everywhere. But it is as though everyone is under the scanner. At police stations, people are being told in no uncertain terms that they are not to help Maoists in any way.
"Don't even show the way. They will cut the very same hands. They will ask for your help in these times. Do not help,'' a police inspector instructs at a police station.
People caught in the crossfire can't afford to incur the wrath of either the Maoists or the police.
"I don't want to say that I am a former Naxal. I would rather be a normal youth. Anything happens, we will be in the crossfire. We will be blamed,'' says Swamy, a former Naxal.
For people like Swamy, there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel, at least as far as he can see.