An Indian Navy man posted in Visakhapatnam has been arrested after the body of a girl whose face was smashed with a brick was recovered from the campus of TNB College, Bhagalpur.

Braj Bhushan Kumar (25), a low-rank officer with the navy, murdered Sunita Kumari (20) because she was pressuring him for marriage, according to Bhagalpur senior superintendent of police (SSP) Manoj Kumar.

"The youth was having an affair with the girl," said SSP Manoj. "Sunita was exerting pressure on Braj Bhushan for marriage and he bludgeoned her to death in a fit of rage."

Braj Bhushan and Sunita are from the same village, Kishanpur, under the Akbarpur police station area, said sources at the University police station in Bhagalpur, around 252km east of Patna.

They knew each other for a while, sources said, but after joining the navy six years ago Braj Bhushan had started avoiding Sunita.

The young man had come home on leave on April 23 and was to return to Visakhapatnam on May 6.

He had called Sunita on Thursday and the two along with Braj Bhushan's two other friends had first gone shopping and later went to the college campus.

The campus was deserted as Thursday was a holiday on account of Sita Navami.

Sunita had taken sindoor (vermilion) and a new saree along with her, sources said.

The two had an altercation as Sunita wanted to marry him but Braj Bhushan was not ready and he killed her in a fit of anger, the police believe.

Sunita's body was discovered behind the Physics block of the college.

The undergraduate sociology student's bag and her identity card were found near her body.

The bag had a box of sindoor and a saree apart from regular-use items.

As the news of the recovery of the body on the college campus spread like wildfire, some student associations staged a protest on the university campus.

"The incident is shocking for us," said Nalini Kant Jha, the newly appointed vice-chancellor of Tilka Manjhi Bhagalpur University.

"We are working on a mechanism so that such an incident is not repeated on the campus," he added.

Security on the campus will be strengthened, he said, as the duo had entered the college despite it being a holiday.

A few months back, a woman's body was recovered from the campus of TNB College, which is one of the oldest and best educational institutes in east Bihar.