The beating had been going on with his back turned against the wall. Eventually, as he began to collapse from exhaustion, the police officer seemed to relent. Afraid of further blows if he turned around, the man stood still, waiting for the officer to leave.

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Benhur

Suddenly, with a loud curse, the inner layer of tender coconut was hurled straight at his tummy by a policeman Rathnavelu. The pain was so intense that he fell on the ground. It took a while to regain his consciousness.

This was just one among the many tales of brutality from the Kakkayam police camp during the Emergency period. LDF convener TP Ramakrishnan was recalling the four harrowing days he spent there in that camp.

At the time, Ramakrishnan was present in the camp during the period when Rajan, a student of REC (Regional Engineering College), was subjected to brutal torture methods such as ulakkayuruttal (a severe form of beating). However, no one in the camp knew about Rajan’s death under torture. On February 16, 1976, Ramakrishnan, the then local secretary of the CPI(M), was arrested. He was kept in the Perambra lock-up for 12 days, with no food, no water, and only his undergarments. On February 28, the Kayanna police station was attacked by Naxalites. The police later fabricated stories claiming that it was a retaliatory attack following Ramakrishnan’s arrest. On February 29, Ramakrishnan and Narayanan Marar, who was with him at the time, were taken to Kayanna for questioning and then transferred to the Kakkayam camp.

Abraham Benhur, a research student at Calicut University, was also brought to the camp by the police on allegations that he was involved in the attack on the police station.

“We hadn’t seen him before, but that young man, who was unable to even stand straight from the beatings, called out to me and all he wanted was a little water.”

The only available water at the camp came through an old rusted pipe and was muddy. The detainees weren’t allowed to use a glass; they had to drink by cupping their hands. Benhur couldn’t even walk that far.

He took off the vest he was wearing, handed it to me, and asked me to wet it and bring it back to him. I had never been bothered by the thrashing, but in that moment, I was filled with tears.