Kamlesh Agarwal, a resident of the posh Bhulabhai Desai road area, was arrested on Friday from a hotel in south Mumbai. Interpol had issued a red alert for him since he hurriedly left the US last July, shortly after the murder of Deepa Agarwal, 20.
Investigators are yet to establish a motive for the murder.
According to the Interpol notice, Deepa, who was working towards a doctorate in finance at the University of Central Florida, Orlando, was murdered on July 11 last year. The murder was discovered more than a week later when her father, Mangi Agarwal, tried telephoning her. Not receiving a reply, he alerted police, who broke into her flat and found her body stuffed in a cardboard box in the bedroom. They say she was an exceptionally bright student, who would have been the youngest student to be awarded a doctorate by the university. Kamlesh, who lived in the flat adjacent to Deepa's murder, was found to have disappeared on the day of the murder.