The accused, a daily wage labourer from Uttar Pradesh, was arrested from Rajasthan on Wednesday.
A nurse was raped and killed while she was returning from a private hospital in Uttarakhand to her home near the Uttar Pradesh border.
She left the hospital on the evening of July 30 and was seen taking an e-rickshaw from Indra Chowk in Rudrapur in CCTV footage but did not reach her rented accommodation on Kashipur Road in Uttar Pradesh's Bilaspur where she stayed with her 11-year-old daughter.
The next day, her sister filed a missing complaint. Eight days later on August 8, the Uttar Pradesh police found her body in an empty plot, nearly 1.5 km from her house in Dibdiba village.
The police sent the body for post-mortem and formed a police team to find the accused. They traced the victim's stolen mobile phone which led them to the accused, Dharmendra. The accused, a daily wage labourer from Uttar Pradesh's Bareilly, was arrested from Rajasthan on Wednesday.
Dharmendra, who was drunk, saw the victim, followed her and attacked her while she was about to enter her apartment building, police said.
"He dragged her to the nearby bushes. Raped and strangled her using her scarf," said Manjunath TC, Senior Superintendent of Police, Udham Singh Nagar.
He also stole her phone and Rs 3,000 from her purse, the police officer added.
This comes amid a nationwide outrage over the rape and murder of a woman trainee doctor during her duty hour in Kolkata's RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. The 31-year-old's semi-naked body was found in the seminar hall of the government-run hospital last week.
The brutal incident has reignited calls for better safety of doctors at their workplaces. Resident doctors across the country are protesting, demanding an assurance that the Central Healthcare Protection Act would be passed to curb attacks on medical personnel.