KANPUR, May 24 -- Around 50 armed Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel arrived at the Kanpur police commissionerate in over a dozen vehicles on Saturday, spread across the campus, and took up positions at points normally manned by policemen - an hour-long show of force meant to compel action on alleged medical negligence that had cost a jawan's mother her arm. Police constables present on the campus, who asked not to be named, said the ITBP convoy of Gypsies began rolling in shortly after 11am. "They just stared at us and did not say a word. We retreated into the offices, leaving the campus to them," one said. "They stood with their weapons at almost all the points usually manned by policemen," a second constable added. "Their presence was unsettling for everyone. They did not leave until their senior officers came out." Inside the meeting room, according to a person familiar with the conversation, a senior police officer with a medical background was the first to raise the alarm over the deployment outside. "Why have you turned this place into Kashmir? Why are so many men stationed outside?" he asked the ITBP officials. The remark brought the situation outside to the commissioner's attention, who, the person added, lost his temper and dressed down the ITBP commandant, asking him to immediately withdraw the personnel from the campus. The personnel had come in support of Vikas Singh, a constable with ITBP's 32nd Battalion in Maharajpur, whose mother Nirmala Devi, 56, had her right arm amputated at a private hospital on May 17. Singh alleged she received negligent treatment at another private hospital earlier, where she had been admitted on May 13 after developing breathing problems. After doctors inserted a cannula, he alleged, swelling and blackening spread rapidly, necessitating the amputation. "What happened within 24 hours that the hand deteriorated to this extent?" he had said earlier. The hospital did not respond to requests for comment. Saturday's mobilisation was the culmination of a week in which Singh had spent three days moving between police offices carrying his mother's amputated arm in an ice container, demanding an FIR, and been turned away each time. A protest at the commissionerate on Monday had yielded only a CMO inquiry - one that Singh and his colleagues alleged, when it came in on Friday, was vague and designed to shield the hospital. On Saturday, ITBP commandant Gaurav Prasad and constable Singh met the commissioner while the remaining personnel stayed outside. Some teams later proceeded to the CMO office. Both sides sought to downplay the visit on record. Singh told reporters he had taken a prior appointment and that his colleagues had accompanied him in support. "Maybe the media has taken this the wrong way. There was no gherao, nothing of that sort. The commissioner has assured us full support. We have complete faith in him, and justice will be done," he said. Additional commissioner of police (law and order) Vipin Kumar Tada said the personnel had come with a prior appointment and were standing outside while senior officers examined objections to the medical report. "Any suggestion of a siege is incorrect," he said. A fresh joint inquiry committee comprising police officials, ITBP representatives and doctors nominated by the CMO has been constituted. CMO Haridutt Nemi defended the original report, saying statements from over 40 people had been recorded and medical documents examined. "The report was not vague. The commissioner's specific questions will now be re-examined by the reconstituted panel," he said....