The missing‑child search spanned 90 police personnel and five special teams, covering the outskirts of Madurai district after the boy failed to return from a Sunday outing.
When the body was recovered the next morning inside a derelict, unoccupied house, forensic teams noted a rope wound around the neck and evidence of a sharp blow to the mouth that had knocked out the child’s front teeth.
Police said the 10‑year‑old supposedly tightened the rope while playing; the child became dizzy, struck his mouth, then fled to the friend’s home before collapsing.
Witnesses report that the friend’s mother, upon realizing the boy had died, moved the body toward the abandoned house in an attempt to conceal the incident, leading to her arrest on Wednesday.
The child will be tried before the Juvenile Justice Board, and a post‑mortem at Government Rajaji Hospital will determine the exact cause of death; the family has called the case a murder.