Patna, March 18: First he was suspected to be a cop. Then, he was said to be a khaki-clad security guard. Now it seems the man, who misbehaved with a girl in an autorickshaw last month, is a “maniac”.

The police are, however, still clueless about his identity and have been unable to arrest him. The search is still on, said the police.

They claim the khaki-clad man is “mentally retarded” or “unstable” and has been spotted often in the vicinity of JD Women’s College.

Earlier this month, the police had released a sketch of the man, pencilled by the girl. A reward of Rs 5,000 had been announced for any information on this person.

There has been some progress, claim cops. But they are unwilling to reveal them, as that might compromise the investigation.

“There has been no breakthrough in the case as of yet. A new sketch of the man was made and circulated. But no one has been arrested yet,” said a police officer.

He added: “A lawyer had come to the police with some information about the man in the sketch.”

The lawyer had informed the police that a similar looking man had misbehaved with her, said the officer.

But she later found out that he was mentally unstable.

The officer said: “Residents of the area claim that a khaki-clad man is often spotted in the area.”

The officer pointed out that the man gets into regular fights with people. “He gets into fights with people quite often. Police suspect he could be the same man. But we are yet to track him down,” the police officer told The Telegraph.

He added that there is yet another reason to suspect that the man is not a cop.

“According to the girl, when she got up in the auto, the man was sitting in the middle. A policeman never sits between two passengers in an auto. We usually sit in front or at the sides,” said the officer.

However, the cops are not ruling out that the man could be one of their ranks or a security guard.

The officer also said that identification parades of suspects had been held more than once but yielded no results.

The girl — a student of Central School, Sheikhpura — was on her way to painting classes when the incident took place.

Tired of the lewd comments, the girl asked the auto driver to stop the vehicle near JD Women’s College. But when she tried to get off, the man held her hand.

The scared girl raised an alarm and the auto driver sped off with the man still in the vehicle.

The girl’s family lodged a complaint that evening at Shastri Nagar police station.

Her father is an assistant engineer with the road construction department.