Patna, April 25: After groping in the dark for over a week on the razor attacks in the city, police today appeared to be veering round to the view that a group of two or three persons on two-wheelers are spreading panic with their slash-and-run strikes.

At least 12 persons have been attacked — one of them twice — since April 16 when 10-year-old Rajnandini was struck by the unknown assailant. All the attacks have taken place in Patna City.

Even this afternoon, a 35-year-old lady was attacked, raising questions on the police theory that only one person was behind the strikes and that he was behind bars.

Police had initially picked up a rag-picker on suspicion of being the “Blade Man” — the nomenclature given to the unknown attacker — but had to release him for want of evidence. Last Friday, the police detained a college student who had with him photographs of some girls and a blade. The boy, whose identity The Telegraph is withholding as his guilt is yet to be established, has been forwarded to judicial custody after he was formally arrested.

Speaking to The Telegraph today, Patna senior superintendent of police Amrit Raj said there has been a “change” in the pattern of the slash strikes after the arrest of the student.

“Earlier, the person was walking on foot and attacking the victims. After the arrest of the youth, there have been two to three incidents in which the victims have claimed that they were attacked by men on motorbikes. It doesn’t seem to be a gang but a group of two to three persons who are giving shape to these incidents. We have discussed some new strategies which cannot be disclosed. They will be implemented in the next two to three days,” Raj said.

Earlier, different police officers, including deputy superintendent (Patna City) Sushil Kumar, had insisted that the only person behind the incidents had been arrested and that information about more attacks were rumours or just publicity stunts.

Last evening, a 26-year-old woman was struck by two motorcycle-borne men wearing helmets in the Loha ka Pul area under the Khajekala police station. The incident came to light today after the victim, identified as Rani Parveen, visited a private clinic in Sadar Gali after she experienced an excruciating pain in her right wrist which had been slashed.

Today, another woman, identified as Anita Devi (35), was slashed with a blade at the crowded vegetable market at the Kaath ka Pul locality under the same police station area around 2.45pm.

Parveen, who lives in the Mita Ram Kuan area in Lodhi Katra, described the attack.

“I stay alone with my three children. My husband, Mohammed Hasan, a tailor by profession, works in Mumbai. Last evening, around 6pm, I had gone to the clinic with my son, who is not well. I took an auto-rickshaw on my way back to Loha ka Pul and was waiting for the vehicle to start. Just then two people on motorbikes, both wearing helmets, came and started to stare at me. I moved my eyes off them and then the auto-rickshaw started. The bikers zipped past me and 10 minutes after that I found blood coming out of my right wrist. By then, I had reached home and I began to feel dizzy. I went to a clinic in the Sadar Gali area, located close to my residence, and the doctor asked me to get it stitched. With my children home alone, I refused and the doctor bandaged the wound. This morning, the pain was really bad and I was not able to lift my hand and thus came to the clinic again,” Rani told The Telegraph.

Anita Devi, who was hit today, said she was struck in the left arm.

M.M. Mandal, the station house officer at Khajekala, who had earlier dismissed the recent incidents as rumours, accepted today that the wounds were caused by blade attacks.

“We want the help of people to nab these men. It is a blade wound,” Mandal told The Telegraph.

What has baffled the police is the seeming lack of any motive.

“The only motive appears to be making mischief. A professional criminal or a gang will never waste their time and energy in something like this which doesn’t bring them any gain or profit. The police, for now, believe that it is the work of some youngsters who are trying to create confusion,” said a police officer who did not wish to be named.