Posters and banners have appeared in several places under Kalimela, Motu and MV-79 police station limits of the district asking people not to use cellphones anymore, official reports said on Thursday.

Leaflets had also been distributed in several villages containing the threat: "those ignoring this directive will not be forgiven".

Traders had also been threatened with dire consequences if they failed to pay proper price to farmers for their produce while contractors were asked not to take up work under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), reports said.

The name Adivasi Rayat Kuli Sangam, a known frontal organisation of the CPI (Maoist), which has been banned by the state government last June, has been mentioned in the posters and leaflets, people inhabiting the villages said.

The posters and leaflets contained demands for withdrawal of the CRPF from the area and end to the "chowkidari system".

A total ban has also been imposed on cockfights -a big attraction in weekly village markets - and gambling.

In addition, they demanded that a large tract of agricultural land owned by an erstwhile research station of the Bhubaneswar-based Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) near MV-90 village should be distributed among the landless poor.

The station had not been functioning since long and one of its buildings there had been blown up by the Maoists about two years ago.

The posters and banners had mainly appeared in Kalimela, Bhejangwada, MV-79, MV-90 and Telrai areas.

Armed Maoists had raided two villages in the district in the recent past killing two persons -a village head and a grocery shop owner.