Police arrested the mother of a 9-year-old Osaka Prefecture girl who had not been seen since March and two male acquaintances after one of the two led them to the child's body buried in a Nara mountain graveyard.

Police suspect that Seika Matsumoto had been abused, and that child welfare authorities were not alerted to her plight even though neighbors and her school suspected something was amiss.Seika had been absent from school since March 11.

The police arrested Matsumoto's mother, Mina, 34, her live-in boyfriend, Yasuhiro Kobayashi, 38, and Mitsuhiro Sugimoto, 41, an acquaintance of the two. The three were turned over to prosecutors April 24.