Raipur, Aug 4 - It could well be dubbed the capital of India's Maoist country. But thousands of policemen in Chhattisgarh who take on the AK-47-carrying rebels are armed with the humble 'lathis' or bamboo staves.

It is an unenviable battle, so loaded against the policemen that many are refusing to fight the insurgents, preferring instead to get suspended from service, police sources say. But the state's police chief denies that his men are demoralised.

'You can say policemen are demoralised only when we are not going for operations in areas of Maoist control. The fact is that we have taken the battle to their (Maoist) zone and are killing them,' Director General of Police Vishwaranjan told IANS.

Another officer claimed that the Maoists were on the run in Chhattisgarh.

Other police officers narrate a different picture.

Some of them told IANS that a section of policemen posted in the thickly forested Maoist strongholds have made peace with the guerrillas in order to stay alive.

The result? Maoists rule supreme in vast areas of Chhattisgarh.

A senior police officer with over 15 years of posting in Maoist areas told IANS: 'The government has the will to crush the insurgents, but it lacks vision and a strategy. This has left hundreds of policemen in forested interiors at the mercy of Maoists.

'Believe it or not, some of these policemen daily salute local Naxalite (Maoist) leaders to ensure they are alive. But in Raipur, the police brass claim that Maoists' days are numbered!'

On July 12, Maoists ambushed a police convoy and killed 29 policemen in Rajnandgaon district. The massacre took to some 225 the number of security personnel and civilians killed in the state this year.

If the killings are any indication, the Maoists appear to be going strong.

The worst ever slaughter of policemen in India at the hands of Maoists took place in Chhattisgarh in March 2007 when 55 police personnel died in Bijapur district.