Hyderabad, June 4: Andhra Pradesh has turned down a Union home ministry request to deploy its elite anti-Maoist Greyhound commandos in Bastar and some other parts of Chhattisgarh, sources in the security establishment here said.

Andhra Pradesh director-general of police V. Dinesh Reddy is said to have told the Centre that the state was ready to share its intelligence inputs on Maoist movements in Chhattisgarh but not its commandos.

Reddy has explained that the state needs all its 2,000-odd Greyhound commandos to guard its borders with Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Odisha in view of intelligence reports that the Maoists are planning to re-enter Andhra in a big way.

The Greyhounds are credited with breaking the backbone of the Maoist network in Andhra’s Dandakaranya forests in the middle of the last decade and driving the rebel leadership out of the state.

They have developed a strong intelligence network to keep tab on rebels movements even in neighbouring states and often cross the border to carry out short operations in Chhattisgarh’s forests.

Greyhound commandos had joined the initial combing operations in Bastar immediately after the May 25 ambush that killed 27 people including two senior Congress leaders.

Reddy has apparently told Delhi that the Greyhounds can be deployed in neighbouring states for such short-term operations in crisis situations but indefinite or permanent deployment was out of the question.

The Greyhounds unit was launched in early 1989 by N.T. Rama Rao’s Telugu Desam government after the Maoists killed a few landlords in Prakasam district. Its training programme was conceived by IPS officer K.S. Vyas, who was later assassinated by Maoists during his evening jog at a Hyderabad stadium.

Today, the Greyhounds have two battalions and have set up bases in Bhadrachalam, Visakhapatnam and Tirupati. Some 450 policemen from various parts of the country and Nepal are now undergoing training at the Greyhounds’ training academy in Himayatsagar.

Since the year 2000, some 1,300 policemen from Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Bihar and Bengal have been trained in counter-insurgent operations at the academy. A 320-strong police team from Nepal underwent training last year.

Greyhound commandos carry dry food and life-supporting medicines besides sophisticated weapons and communications equipment. They are supported by a helicopter command for rescue and emergency operations in the jungles.