New Delhi - The tribal people of central India's Bastar region are rushing to get photo identity cards, believing they might save them from being branded Maoists as security forces prepare for an assault on the rebels, a news report said Monday.

The forests of the Bastar area in Chhattisgarh state have been a stronghold of the Maoists since the late 1980s.

Worried residents of remote villages have been travelling long distances to reach photo studios in the hopes of acquiring identity cards, the IANS news agency reported.

Arjun Singh, who runs a studio in the Sukma block of Dantewada district, said 40 to 50 tribal people had been approaching him daily for more than 10 days to have their photos taken for the identity cards, or I-cards.

"Speculation is rife that the police will wipe out local people by branding them as Maoists or Maoist sympathizers if they fail to produce a photo I-card," Singh was quoted as saying.

Reports in the local media that police would storm into villages to eliminate Maoists and kill locals have spread panic in Bastar's interior regions, said Manish Kunjam, head of a local tribal organization and a former Communist Party of India legislator.

The police seemed aware of the development and blamed the Maoists for the panic.

"It looks like the sudden rush by tribal people for photo I-cards from private people or groups is a tactic by the Maoists," senior Bastar police official TJ Longkumer said. "There is no question of the police doing anything to people on the basis of whether or not they have photo I-cards."

"Even those families who don't have an I-card, a voter's I-card or a bank or post office passbook need not worry," Longkumer added. "They will not be targeted. The forces will hit only the guerillas and their hideouts."

Tribal groups, rights activists and intellectuals have expressed concern that innocent villagers might suffer in the Indian security forces' offensive against the Maoists.

According to the Home Ministry, Maoist rebels are active in 20 of India's 28 states and Chhattisgarh is one of the worst-affected.

According to officials at the police headquarters at Chhattisgarh's capital, Raipur, the Bastar region was home to at least 10,000 Maoist rebels.

More than 1,500 people have been killed in Maoist violence in Chhattisgarh since 2004, about 90 per cent of them in Bastar alone.

Maoist rebels claimed they are leading an armed rebellion to secure the rights of the poor and marginalized.

They operate in some of India's poorest districts, especially forested land populated by tribal people that have seen little development. (dpa)