A 42-year-old woman was allegedly raped and beaten to death by a migrant labourer from Assam, police said here on Wednesday.
Umar Ali, 27, has been arrested in connection with the incident which occurred on Tuesday night, they said.
The woman's naked body was found lying in a pool of blood near a hotel in the city by a worker this morning.
Police said the man had raped the woman and killed her by repeatedly hitting her head and face with a shovel.
The woman hailed from Kuruppampady, 5 km from Perumbavoor town where the incident took place around 1 am, they said.
The man also destroyed a close circuit TV camera of a nearby building which had captured the incident.
The police, however, could identify him using footage from another CCTV camera.
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This is the second such attack against women in recent times in Perumbavoor involving a migrant worker.
The town is known for its huge migrant population.
In 2016, a law student, who hailed from a poor family, was raped and assaulted using sharp-edged weapons before being murdered at her house in Perumbavoor.
Ameerul Islam from Assam, the lone convict found guilty in the rape and murder of the 30-year old Dalit woman, was awarded death sentence by a Principal Sessions court at Ernakulam in 2017.