KOZHIKODE: he infamous Kakkayam concentration camp and the disappearance of P Rajan remain some of the darkest and most disturbing episodes from the Emergency period in Kerala, and perhaps the entire country. The relentless legal battle waged by Rajan’s father, T V Eachara Warrier, not only sought to trace his missing son but also exposed a chilling record of police torture and human rights violations inflicted on naxalites and their sympathisers at the camp.
The chain of events that led to the Kakkayam horror began with a naxalite attack on the Kayanna (Koorachundu) police station on February 28, 1976. A group of naxalites — M M Somasekharan, Murali Kannampally, C H Achuthan, Sugathan, Bhargavan, and K Vasu — stormed the station and escaped with a firearm. In retaliation, the police launched a large-scale crackdown the very next day, targeting young men from nearby areas including Kayanna, Koorachundu, and Kakkayam. Dozens were picked up and taken to a makeshift detention centre at the KSEB quarters in Kakkayam, where they were subjected to brutal torture.
The inquiry team, headed by the then crime branch deputy inspector general, Jayaram Padikkal, is alleged to have employed severe torture techniques, the most notorious being ‘uruttal’ — the practice of rolling a heavy wooden log over a prisoner’s thighs — to force confessions and extract information.
On March 1, 1976, the police arrived at the Regional Engineering College in Chathamangalam to arrest Rajan and several others on suspicion of involvement in the attack. Somasekharan, the prime accused in the police station attack, later recalled witnessing Rajan being taken away.
“I saw the van taking Rajan and others,” Somasekharan recounted.
“At the time, I didn’t realise it was him. I was running for my life. But within days, I too was captured. The first thing I heard after arriving at the camp was that someone had been killed. A police officer casually told me, ‘One’s dead, you’ll be next’. It was only the next day that I learnt it was Rajan.”
Somasekharan described the harrowing torture he endured at the camp, particularly ‘uruttal’, from the very first day.
“All of us went through the same procedure. We were tied down to a wooden bench and a heavy wooden rod was rolled down with force between our waist and knee. We all withstood it on the first day. On the second day, it was like tearing off flesh from our thighs. On the third day, the skin became dark blue in colour. Padikkal’s strategy was very scientific, the brutality will never kill us. But we desire for death. When they stuffed cloth into my mouth to silence my screams, a senior officer warned them to be careful. I suspect Rajan may have suffocated to death in a similar way, and they didn’t want that happening again,” he said.
To this day, debate continues over whether Rajan was an active naxalite. Somasekharan maintains that while Rajan may not have been a militant, he was a sympathiser.
“We held meetings in his hostel room at the engineering college. Later, after we were released from jail, we made inquiries to find out what happened to his body. Some claimed his body was burnt with sugar, others said it was dumped into the Urakkuzhi waterfalls. I once visited Urakkuzhi and spoke to the guard there. The fear in his eyes made it clear to me that there’s a good chance Rajan’s body was disposed there,” he said.
Today, little remains at Kakkayam to mark the grim history, except a memorial statue of Rajan. The old KSEB building, which served as the camp, was demolished to make way for a canal as part of the Kakkayam mini-hydro project. Even today, visitors to the Urakkuzhi waterfalls hear from the forest guards the infamous story of Rajan’s body being dumped there — a grim reminder of a time when voices of dissent were silenced through force.