Latika Guha's slim account of what she and her two relatives underwent in the torture cell of Kolkata Police's infamous Lal Bazar in 1974 was first published in 2001. Ten years later, Malaya Ghosh's published Lalbajare 64 Din (64 Days in Lal Bazar), which documents, quite literally, what the title says: Ghosh's 64 days in police custody. Written after a hiatus of almost three decades, the two texts show that for almost three months, from late May 1974 to August 1974, the Lal Bazar torture specialist, Sub-Inspector Runu Guha Niyogi, also known as Runu Guha, and his cohorts detained and tortured four women: Malaya Ghosh, Latika Guha, Archana Guha and Gouri Chatterji. The nature of the torture was such that Archana Guha was maimed for life and Malaya Ghosh was also rendered lame. The texts expose the brutality and the infamous career of the torture specialist. Occupying a prominent place within the historiography of the seventies, both texts bear witness to the repression that was unleashed against Naxalites.

The relation between the political and the captive is central to the context of custodial interrogation. Through self-accounts and documentation, this chapter provides an analysis of state impunity, specifically torture of women suspects. Following a preliminary historical discussion on torture, the chapter foregrounds available documented evidence on custodial torture of women Naxalites and places it within the larger context of the seventies. The subsequent section discusses individual instances of torture of women Naxalites, from Kerala, Andhra and Bengal, including two torture narratives alluded to before.