The body dressed in a black salwar with mehendi marks on the palms was found beside the Haripur-Balanga canal, about 25 km from here.
"We have recovered the half-burnt body of a girl aged about 20 years. Her identity is yet to be ascertained," Puri Superintendent of Police Anup Sahul told reporters here.
Residents of Samarai Sasan village found the body this morning and informed police, the SP said, adding there were no burn injuries on the victim's hands and legs while half of her face was burnt.
Asked if it was a case of rape, the SP said "the details will be known after we get the postmortem report from the district headquarters hospital."
Police found some liquor bottles and other materials from a half-built house near the canal.
A dog squad and scientific teams from Puri were investigating the killing.
The police suspected the girl was killed somewhere else and the body set ablaze near the canal.
The spot where the body was found was only four kilometer from Pipili where a dalit girl was attacked and raped in November 2011. She died in July 2012 after remaining in coma for about seven months.
