Calcutta: A couple who saw Arghya Biswas on a train while he was being brought to Calcutta on Saturday evening rushed to SSKM Hospital early on Sunday after hearing from a relative that the child was being denied treatment.

Tulika and Arghya Ganguly said a relative called them up and narrated their plight. The residents of Nepal Bhattacharjee Street, near Rashbehari Avenue-SP Mukherjee Road crossing, thought they would become "a party to the crime" if they did not fight for the child's right to be treated.

The Gangulys - Arghya, 37, is in Calcutta police, and Tulika, 30, is preparing to become a Montessori teacher - had given their phone numbers to the boy's family and asked them to call if they needed help.

They were returning home after visiting Tulika's parents in Kanchrapara when they saw the drooping child.

Dinesh Mondal, the child's relative, had called Arghya when NRS Medical College and Hospital referred the child to Calcutta Medical College.

"I told them to go to the police kiosk on the hospital premises and seek help from the cops," recounted Arghya, who is posted in the special raids section of the traffic department.

Mondal called Arghya a second time when a doctor at Medical College and Hospital allegedly told him to take the child to SSKM Hospital.

"He was crying. He said the child wouldn't survive. My wife and I felt we should go to SSKM Hospital and try to help the family in whatever way we could. They were poor people who had come to Calcutta in the hope of getting treatment," said Arghya.

"We decided that the boy could not be allowed to die like that and we needed to do something," said Arghya.

The couple hailed a taxi and reached SSKM around 12.45am.

They spoke to the policemen at the SSKM outpost, requesting them to help the family, and also talked to doctors in the emergency department on behalf of the child's family.

Arghya and Tulika accompanied the child and the relatives to the ENT male ward in the Main Block. In the ward, they narrated to the doctors what the child and the family had been going through.

"The doctors gave us a patient hearing.... The operations started within an hour," Arghya said.

The Gangulys left SSKM around 3.45am, only after the child was wheeled out of the operating theatre to the ward. "We did nothing special. We felt guilty when they said they were being asked to take the child to SSKM from Medical College. We felt we should have accompanied the family to NRS," said Tulika.

Mondal later told Metro that he was grateful to the couple. "We are not that educated and were nervous. Their visit gave us strength and they could also explain our plight to the doctors," said Mondal.