The accused has confessed that he had a relationship with the woman, police said. (Representational)
Police on Friday said that they have arrested the boyfriend of the 21-year-old student, whose body was found on a roadside in Odisha's Jajpur district.
During interrogation, the accused told the police that he spent a night with the woman at a hotel in Bhubaneswar and when he woke, she was lying unconscious, officials said.
Panicked over the situation, he called a friend and they "dumped" the body on a roadside, the accused told the police, as per officials.
"We are waiting for the post-mortem report and other revelations by the accused to come to a conclusion in the murder case. We are yet to know the exact reason behind the murder," said Jajpur's Superintendent of Police Rahul PR.
The body of the woman, a student of a university in Bhubaneswar, was found near Mulapala Chhak in Jajpur's Kuakhia police station area on Wednesday.
She was a native of Mayurbhanj and told her family on Tuesday that she was returning home from Bhubaneswar, following which her body was found in Jajpur, police said.
Police had earlier said that two persons were seen on CCTV footage carrying the body on a red scooter and "dumping" it.
The boyfriend was detained on Thursday night after the woman's father alleged that he may be involved in the incident.
The accused has confessed that he had a relationship with the woman, police said.
He also told police that she had boarded a bus for Jashipur in Mayurbhanj from Jaydev Vihar in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday morning, they said.
However, she got down at Vani Vihar Square in the state capital and walked to Rupali Square where the accused was waiting for her on a scooter, they added.
After that, they checked into a hotel with him and spent the night there.
The boyfriend said that when he woke up, he found the woman unconscious, and panicked, he dialled a friend who immediately reached the hotel, according to police.
Both of them took her on their two-wheeler in an unconscious condition and midway when they realised that she had died, they dumped the body, police said.
Meanwhile, Odisha State Commission for Women chairperson Minati Behera visited the Jajpur district to inquire into the death case.
"I have discussed the matter with the district SP and collector. Police are carrying out the investigation promptly and the district administration is also actively doing the needful," she said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)