There are no men in this Pardi village. All of them have run away, after hearing of the arrival of a team from the Delhi Police.

Shyam Singh Yadav, incharge of the Khejra police post, says: ``When I did my rounds on Saturday morning all of them were here. By afternoon they disappeared.''

The Pardis have an amazing knack of vanishing. The local police say that they run through the fields and up the hills so fast, that it is impossible to catch them. And they pelt anyone following them with stones.

All the Pardi villages around Guna are deserted it is the same story in Kanari, Kanera, Khedra Baba and Chat Morania. Similar voices echo in all the villages of illegal arrests, police brutality and humiliation.

Biwi swings her legs sitting on a charpoy and plays with her fourchildren. She shudders as she speaks about her husband Baldev. ``The Delhi Police came and picked him up from here in 1996. I have not seen him or heard anything from him since. I don't know why he was taken away. I don't even know if he is alive. First I was scared to live here alone with my children but we have no choice but to wait for him to return.''

While Biwi waits for her husband, other Pardi women say that raids and an increasing police presence in the area are now routine. But they are surprised by the arrival of the Delhi Police team this time.

``The last time police came from Delhi was in 1996, when they arrested four men in the Kalra murder case. After that no one has gone to Delhi -- we were all so scared that we go to other cities now,'' says a Pardi woman.

The local police say: ``Usually we are aware of their every movement. We know when some families go out to steal, where they have gone and when they come back.''

Guna Police Superintendent Suresh Sharma says: ``Normally we can sniffthese things out. We always know when they've gone and what they've got back. But this time we haven't heard anything about Saket.''

All this only serves to compound the problems of Additional DCP (south Delhi) Rajender S Ghumman and his team, as they have no one to interrogate.

The Delhi Police is attempting to work through the informers in the village -- also Pardis.

The informers are a curious lot and there is tremendous animosity between them and the rest of the villagers. They, of course, know the exact modus operandi as they too have gone to other cities to loot and plunder, sometimes even kill, but now they want to earn an honest livelihood.

They have the protection of the local police and often use it to settle personal scores. Yet they are also scared. Balu Ram, an informer, unbuttons his shirt to reveal three bullet injuries. ``This is the price I have to pay. Dono taraf se maut hain. Yahan hum na ji sakte hain, na mar sakte hain. These people won't stop stealing. They are greedy and lazy.So they won't work for a living. There are four to six bad families in every village.''He adds that while many Pardis are now carrying guns, they don't use them ``on the job'' but only to settle ``personal matters''.

His wife Maya says: ``We have 400 bighas of land and now trying to lead honest lives. But we get no peace from the police or the other villagers. My husband is doing good by helping the police, but I know that one day he too will disappear.''

Her fear is based on the mysterious death of an informer Srikishan here a year and a half ago, when his charred body was found at his house in Mila Khedi. The local police have not been able to trace the culprits till date.

With no one to question, the Delhi Police team is trying to trace the culprits through the goods stolen in both the murder cases (of Saket), but this task is also difficult.

Addl SP (Guna) R P Singh says: ``There is one thing about these people -- it is near impossible to recover stolen property from them. Even if we use thirddegree methods, they don't reveal anything. At most they give some fictitious names of a third party they have sold these goods to.''

Addl DCP Ghumman from south Delhi knows it's going to be a long haul. But he remains optimistic. ``One outcome is that with our presence here these people stop going to Delhi. So if nothing else, then at least this is a preventive step. We will stay here until they (the suspected Pardi killers in the Jains murder) return.''

The 10-member team led by Ghumman includes former SHO of Malviya Nagar police station Mahipal Singh. The latter was on leave when the two murders had taken place in Saket. But he along with other police officials was transferred.