A phone conversation that Anna Chakkappan, an elderly woman living at Varapuzha, on the outskirts of Kochi, overheard a few days ago threw her into a tizzy.

Her heart skipped a beat on hearing her son, M.J. Saijan, asking the caller, a policeman from the Ernakulam Central police station, whether he should go to jail. Panic gripped her. The horrifying memories of the torture allegedly endured by her son in a jail in Ernakulam surged back in all totality.