March 2, 2026, marks 50 years since the custodial death of P. Rajan at the infamous Kakkayam police camp in Kerala’s Kozhikode district.
Rajan’s disappearance remains one of the darkest chapters of police brutality in Kerala’s history. The decades-long legal battle of T. V. Eachara Warrier, who went bankrupt in his pursuit of the truth about his son’s fate, touched the shared humanity of the people of the state.
Rajan was a student at the Calicut Regional Engineering College when he was arrested by the Kerala Police on March 1, 1976. Available accounts indicate that he was subjected to brutal torture by police officers led by Sub-Inspector Pulikkodan Narayanan at the Kakkayam camp.
Kakkayam is a densely forested area at the foothills of the Sahya mountain range. Inside the forest, the camp operated from a long tin-roofed building originally constructed for storing electrical equipment. During the Emergency, it was used as an interrogation centre to target suspected Naxalites. Rajan was picked up along with a friend for his alleged links with Left extremists and is believed to have died as a result of the severe torture inflicted on him.
Almost 200 people were subjected to unspeakable torture and the lion's share of these men had nothing to do with the case being probed. It is reported that such was the ‘Uruttal’ (Malayalam for rolling) torture method that Pulikkodan Narayanan and his men carried out that the thigh muscles of the victims were peeled off from their bones. Clothes were stuffed in the mouths of the victims to stop them from screaming, and the tormentors often poked the injured and swollen thighs of the victims with sharpened pencils.
Why was Rajan hunted?
The immediate backdrop to the Rajan case was a Naxalite attack. In the early hours of 28 February 1976, Naxalites attacked the Kayanna Police Station, located about 60 kilometres from Kozhikode. A head constable and three police officers were seriously injured, and the attackers escaped with loaded firearms from the station.
As the attack occurred during the Emergency, the Kerala government viewed it as a serious security lapse. Home Minister K. Karunakaran ordered an investigation. The inquiry was entrusted to DIG Jayaram Padikkal, under whose charge the northern range of the Kerala Police was placed. He established a camp deep inside the remote Kakkayam forest, about 50 kilometres from Kozhikode. In the aftermath of the attack, individuals bearing the name Rajan reportedly faced a witch-hunt, as one of the fleeing Naxalites was heard calling out that name.
What happened to Rajan?
It is believed that Rajan’s body was disposed of by the police and was never recovered. Some accounts suggest that his body was mutilated, weighted with stones, and thrown into the Kakkayam dam. Others claim it was burned with sugar and the ashes scattered at Urakkuzhi Waterfall near the dam.
In an attempt to recover the body, Navy diving experts searched the Kakkayam dam for two days at a depth of thirty feet, but nothing was found.
According to a report in Mathrubhumi, the case was later examined by a Coimbatore court, which held that the charge of murder had not been proven beyond reasonable doubt, citing insufficient evidence.
Eachara Warrier’s relentless search for justice
Rajan’s father fought a prolonged battle against the establishment to uncover the truth and expose the atrocities committed by the state. The petition and subsequent investigations established that Rajan had indeed been taken into custody and had died while in police detention.
From the outset, there were attempts to derail the murder investigation. During the examination of witnesses, the government lawyer failed to ask Rajan’s father any substantive questions related to the case. Eachara Warrier became convinced that the prosecution was being handled in a manner designed to ensure failure. Meanwhile, all his efforts to implead himself in the case were blocked by the government.
Because Rajan’s body was never recovered, several charges against the accused had to be dropped. The police ultimately confirmed that he had died in custody following a habeas corpus petition — the first of its kind in Kerala’s history — filed by his father in the Kerala High Court.