“I am giving you a constable. He will drop you off there and come back.” When Circle Inspector of Chennur police station Raghunandan Rao told us this, we expected a smooth entry into this police station tucked away on the Andhra Pradesh-Maharashtra border in Adilabad district. But as our vehicle turned towards its entrance, there was chaos.

A loud siren shattered the calm, alert calls rang out in the dark, we were told to stop 100 m away and our constable-escort began shouting: “Dost hai, dost hai.”

Four armed personnel took positions, pointing their guns at us while our escort’s identity card was checked. And only when a policeman identified him as “apna police station ka aadmi (our man),” were we allowed to enter.

“Sorry, we have to do all this,” said SI G H Ramesh, the man in charge of the police station. “My men are always expected to remain alert, come what may, come who may.”

This alertness isn’t the only thing that strikes you about this police station in Neelwai, in the heart of Andhra Pradesh’s Naxal bastion, 250 km east of Adilabad. Consider:

• The station has a mineral-water plant. Unlike the one in Chhattisgarh, as reported in the first part of this series, authorities have taken care to ensure that personnel have access to safe drinking water. “The police shouldn’t fall ill after drinking impure water here, how else will they take on the Naxals?” says Ramesh.

• Neelwai has a siren system that enables all police chiefs, including State Director General of Police, to hear it, so they are alerted in case of an emergency. Neelwai isn’t an exception, every police station in the Naxal belt has this.

... contd.