A man living as a paying guest at a Haridevpur house was arrested in Sealdah on Tuesday in connection with a gold jewellery theft at the house.

Pradipta Kishore Sahoo, who had allowed Sudipta Das, 30, to stay in his house as a paying guest, found the jewellery and the keys to a cupboard and the main door missing after returning from Kalighat on Saturday. He had gone with his family to the Kali temple to offer prayers on the occasion of Kali Puja.

Sahoo later realised that his credit cards and his phone’s SIM card were missing.

Das had possibly removed the card from the phone on the pretext of making a call to ensure bank alerts regarding online transactions don’t land up at the phone, police said.

After his arrest, cops have recovered the stolen credit cards, money and gold jewellery he had bought from a store in Gariahat using one of the credit cards.

He has apparently told cops that he sold the jewellery he had stolen from the house to a goldsmith.

The detective department’s anti-burglary section took over the case from Haridevpur police station.

Cops located the store in Gariahat from details of the credit card used to buy jewellery and scanned the footage of CCTV cameras there and zeroed in on Das.

Sahoo confirmed the identity of Das who had been living at his house for the past three months.

“The moment he had inserted the SIM card in another phone to receive the OTP needed to validate an online transaction, cops traced the phone’s location to a hotel in Sealdah,” an officer said.

Das has been booked for theft.