A day after the body of an 18-year-old woman from Assam was found with multiple injuries inside a locked residence of an engineer in Noida’s Sector 49, the 30-year-old accused was arrested in Bihar’s Katihar district on Tuesday for trafficking liquor, officials from Bihar and Noida said on Thursday. Noida police has said it has initiated proceedings to secure custody of the accused.

Early on Wednesday, Noida police finally traced his location, only to find that he had been arrested. (Representational image)

The accused belongs to Tingachhia Ward No. 44 in the city of Katihar, according to the FIR in Bihar.

According to officials, around 11.50 pm on Tuesday, police in Katihar received a tip about a suspicious man with a bag. He was arrested with five bottles of West Bengal-marked liquor under section 30(A) of the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, the FIR said.

Early on Wednesday, Noida police finally traced his location, only to find that he had been arrested. They then approached Bihar Police to take custody of the 30-year-old.

ACP, Noida, Rakesh Pratap Singh said, “On Thursday, we completed the B-warrant (production warrant) procedure at the Surajpur (Gautam Budh Nagar) court to bring the suspect back to Noida.”

While police have yet to fully establish the motive, in an interrogation with Bihar police, the accused alleged that he killed her on the intervening night of Friday and Saturday after the victim “approached him asking for a matchbox” and they got into a fight.

“He killed her and disposed of their mobile phones in a drain outside his accommodation,” said SHO Kumar.

In Noida, police investigation revealed that after he killed her, he went to his girlfriend’s house and took ₹3,000 from her before fleeing the city, police said.

“After he left Noida, he admitted to her on the phone that he had committed a crime at the place where he had been staying,” said a Noida police officer, requesting anonymity.

Manisha Singh, additional deputy commissioner of police, Noida, said the motive would be revealed after a thorough investigation.

The post-mortem report on Wednesday revealed she had eight cut marks on her body.

“The cause of death is shock due to the attack,” said Rakesh Pratap Singh, assistant commissioner of police, Noida.

The murder came to light around noon on Monday after the landlord of their four-storey building in Barola reported a foul smell emanating from a locked room on the first floor. Police reached the spot, identified the occupant and broke open the door. A police officer involved in the investigation said they found a woman with “woman, with multiple injuries including cut marks all over her face, was lying blood-soaked on the side of the room”.

The decomposing body was identified to belong to the 18-year-old woman by a friend with whom she had come from Assam over a fortnight ago.