As the police withdraw from vulnerable forward bases, the Maoists are moving in to fill the vacuum in four western districts: Rolpa, Rukum, Jajarkot and Salyan.
The police strategy now is to concentrate their forces in ilaka (area) police fortresses. Rukum, for instance, used to have 23 police stations, now the number is down to six. In Jajarkot there are only six from the earlier 15, and in Rolpa the number is down to eight from 39.

It used to be that the police ruled by day and the Maoists by night. No longer so. Now Maoists roam through villages in broad daylight. "I tell my police force to go into the village only when a villager has asked for help. During such times they go by helicopter and come back as soon as their work is over," says Parsuram Arya), the chief district officer (CDO) of Rukum.

Elected representatives who were provided security by the police and won the local elections unopposed have become the main targets of Maoists.
The secretaries of many village development committees (VDCs) of Rolpa, Rukum, Salyan and Jajarkot have fled to the relative safety of the district headquarters in Liwang (Rolpa), Musikot (Rukum), Khalanga (Jajarkot), and Khalanga (Salyan).

Having moved in to fill the gap left by the police, the Maoists are now engaged in establishing jansatta (people\'s rule). They have formed Village People\'s Committees (VPCs) parallel to the VDCs. Besides Maoists, activists of the CPN (UML), the Nepali Congress, RPP and even some VDC officials have been included in these committees.

The acronym VPC is now as widely used as VDC used to be. The VPCs are implementing the Maoist agenda such as the introduction of a "revolutionary economic system\'\', setting up co-operative banks, curbing gambing and the production of alcohol, formulating new marriage acts, and mobilising the community in agriculture, and in building roads, bridges and water supply systems.

General Secretary of CPN (Maoist) Comrade Prachanda says the four districts will be the "base area" of this group\'s activities. According to the Maoists, in a base area, the government withers away, and a new people-oriented authority takes its place.

Talking to local villagers, it becomes clear that police excesses are responsible for pushing many people into the Maoist fold. "The government has forced us to become Maoists," said Bir Bahadur K.C. of Khara in Rukum, whose house was burnt down by the police.

Even the police now admit that last year\'s offensive against the Maoists, codenamed "Kilo Sierra Two", could only hold back the Maoists. Ultimately, the brutality of the operation backfired on the police since it strengthened the peoples sympathy for the Maoists.

Today, the police are on the defensive. There have been more than 800 ambushes on police patrols, and one deputy superintendent of police, six inspectors, and more than 200 policemen have been killed. Some 400 guns have also been lost to the Maoists.

Deputy Inspector General of Police Rajendra Bahadur Singh, the police commander for the mid-western development region, complains that the police lack both weapons and numbers. The police have had to make to with vintage 303 rifles, and it is only recently that the army has begun providing them with automatic weapons.

The police are also not trained in guerrilla warfare and counterattack tactics. The existing special force of 250 policemen is too small to fight the Maoists effectively.

Since 17 July the army has been conducting a 45-day training for 100 policemen in counter-insurgency and jungle warfare. But police officials concede this is too little too late.