A man who was in a rush to meet his four-day-old nephew admitted to Calcutta Medical College and Hospital parked his two-wheeler outside the hospital and asked a stranger to look after it.

An hour later he returned to find the vehicle and the stranger gone.

On asking people in the area, the man learnt that the stranger had earlier cheated several people by posing as a member of the hospital staff who could get relatives of patients connected to doctors directly against a “nominal payment”.

Police tracked the man down through a phone number obtained by speaking to various people. The theft occurred on Wednesday afternoon. Soon after finding his motorcycle gone, Abdul Moid, a resident of the Ripon Street area, lodged a complaint of theft with Bowbazar police station.

During investigation police found a phone number from people at the hospital. Cops tracked the tower location of the phone to Chandernagore in Hooghly district.

The subscriber details record of the SIM card helped the police get details of the person in whose name the SIM is registered.

The person was identified as Tulsi Das Majhi, 20, a resident of Chandernagore. He was arrested on Wednesday night and produced in court on Thursday. The stolen motorcycle has been seized from him, the police said.

It is advisable not to trust strangers in a government hospital, according to senior officers. There are frauds roaming around trying to cheat people taking advantage of their mental state because most have a family member or a relative or someone close admitted to the hospital, they said.