With the health authorities sitting tight, it was one of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee?s men in uniform who walked that extra mile to save the chief minister?s face and keep his words: that the police are the government at night.

Refused by two hospitals, two-year-old Dhiren Singha was rushed to National Medical College and Hospital on Sunday night with a broken hand and serious head injuries.

But the emergency ward was full to capacity. The child was forced to lie on the floor with his aunt. Unable to bear the pain, he fell unconscious around midnight.

An hour later, an officer from Karaya police station entered the hospital with four injured rowdies. Taking pity on the unconscious child, the officer first requested the hospital authorities to shift him to a bed. But it did not work.

He then hired a taxi and went to NRS Hospital, where the child was treated and his broken hand plastered.

Confirming the incident, deputy commissioner of police (south) Anuj Sharma said: ?Shantanu Majumdar has done an excellent job. He has done what a police officer should always do.?

Dhiren and mother Gouri were seriously injured when an autorickshaw knocked them down at the Behala four-point crossing on Sunday afternoon. Local people took them to MR Bangur Hospital, where Gouri was admitted. The child was referred to a ?better hospital? ? Vidyasagar Hospital ? where doctors refused to admit him.

Officials at National Medical College and Hospital said Dhiren reached the emergency unit at 9 pm. The doctors realised that the child needed an operation, but no surgeon was present in the hospital then. They explained the situation to Dhiren?s aunt.

The woman and the child had no option but to take a seat on the floor, in front of the emergency ward, waiting for a surgeon to turn up. It was 1 am when a police jeep entered the hospital, with Majumdar and the four rowdies.

After having failed to persuade the authorities to do something for the child, Majumdar called Karaya police station office-in-charge Dipak Dutta, seeking his consent to take the child to some other hospital. Dutta gave him the go-ahead. Majumdar then sent the rowdies back to the police station in his jeep and hired a taxi.

He took the child and his aunt to the Institute of Child Health, on the EM Bypass. But doctors there advised Majumdar to take the child to a better-equipped government hospital, as the nature of his wounds was serious. Dhiren was then taken to NRS, where doctors treated him for over two hours.