The murder of a middle-aged woman in the state capital late on Monday evening has confounded the police already grappling with the brutal killing of an eight-year-old girl.

The police said on Tuesday that the 38-year-old victim, identified as a resident of Vaishali, had been called to Patna with the promise of a job. Around 8.30pm on Monday, a group of men caught hold of her at the back of a community hall in Kidwaipuri under the jurisdiction of Buddha Colony police station and slit her throat according to an eyewitness, whose identity is not being disclosed.

“The case is being investigated. The police, during initial investigations, have come to know that the woman was having problems with her family in Vaishali over a plot of land. The police have detained two suspects in the case and are interrogating them. However, the question arises that why was she summoned to Patna? If she were to be murdered, the culprits could have so even in her home district. We found out that the woman had been called with a promise of a lucrative job in a private finance company,” an officer at Buddha Colony police station told The Telegraph.

The police added that the family of the woman had been contacted.

“Though much cannot be said right now, the woman was apparently a widow. It seems that she was deliberately called at the spot on some pretext and was murdered. The case is being investigated from all possible angles,” said the officer.

The men-in-uniform said until now, there were no breakthroughs in connection with the murder of the eight-year-old girl, whose body was recovered from a field in the Bahadurpur Housing Colony area under the jurisdiction of Alamganj police station.

The girl had gone missing from her locality at Pirmuhani under the jurisdiction of Gandhi Maidan police station area on August 28.

“Till now, there has been no breakthrough but more than 50 policemen are trying to crack this particular case. The post-mortem report is awaited but the forensic sciences laboratory has also been involved. The finding of the forensic team will prove whether the girl was raped or not. But then the killers didn’t want anyone to identify the girl and hence, her face was badly disfigured. The family members and the relatives of the girl are being continuously questioned but till now, the police have not been able to make any breakthrough,” a police officer at Gandhi Maidan police station, told The Telegraph.