Chennai, Sept. 22: M. Chandrakumar was a 22-year-old casual labourer when police picked him up and tortured him in custody to own up to a crime he didn't commit. Thirty-two years on, the real-life auto driver's account has been selected as India's Oscar entry in the foreign language category for the 2017 Academy Awards.

Tamil movie Visaranai (Enquiry) is based on Chandrakumar's novel Lockup,where he wrote of his experience of life in handcuffs.

Now 54, the Class X dropout drives an autorickshaw in Coimbatore.

Chandrakumar and two of his friends were picked up by Andhra police in 1984 as they slept in a park after their daily grind as labourers in Guntur town. After 13 days in police custody, when they were tortured mercilessly to admit to a robbery they had not committed, they were finally released.

But freedom came only after they had owned up to being "hobby chors" - those who stole and dumped the goods without selling them for profit. "That was the only way we could earn our freedom and escape all the beatings and torture," Chandrakumar recalled.

The film's director, Vettrimaran, was so engrossed by Lockup's narrative that he decided to make it into a movie. Visaranai proved to be a commercial and critical hit, winning the national award for best Tamil film, best editing and best supporting actor.

The raw realism of Visaranai saw the movie being selected for last year's Venice film festival, where the entire film team, including Chandrakumar, got a standing ovation. "Our aim was to portray realistically how the poor and hapless suffer at the hands of a system that is totally unaccountable," Vettrimaran said.

Chandrakumar was a happy man today. "Will it win the Oscar?" he asked.