Mahishadal: Mumbai police have arrested an East Midnapore resident for allegedly calling up cricketer Sachin Tendulkar's house many times expressing wish to marry his 20-year-old daughter.

The arrested man from Mahishadal was purportedly being treated for mental instability in Midnapore since 2009.

East Midnapore district police sources said a team from Mumbai police had come to Mahishadal on Saturday night and arrested Debkumar Maity, 32, a signboard painter. He had been detained by the local police on Saturday morning.

Maity was produced in the additional chief judicial magistrate's court in Haldia on Sunday and sent to Mumbai on a transit remand.

Maity has been booked under Sections 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) of the IPC.

Mahishadal circle inspector Subhankar De said Maity had been calling on a landline number of the 44-year-old cricketer's residence in Mumbai repeatedly for about a month, seeking marriage to his daughter Sara. On some occasions, said De, Sachin had answered the calls himself.

"On Friday, Sachin lodged a complaint with the police in Mumbai and they got in touch with us. We traced the number to Mahishadal's Andulia village and got hold of Maity on Saturday," said De.

When asked why he did it, Maity said: "I am in love with Sara, she is my life. I have wanted to marry her since I saw her on TV."

Maity has a tattoo on the right forearm that reads "DEB SARA".

Maity said a nephew who worked in Mumbai had got hold of Sachin's landline number.

By Maity's own admission, he had called Sachin's landline at least 25 times over a month or so.

Maity's mother Kanaklata said she had been "fed up" with her younger son's antics and tantrums over the years.

"He has been under treatment for eight-nine years for mental illness. He is clearly out of control. Let police handle him. I really can't, anymore," said Kanaklata.