Residents of Zhuhai are still in shock about what happened there on November 11, when 35 people exercising at a sports complex in the late evening were fatally run over as well as 43 people injured by a man driving an SUV. Such violence is new to this beautiful and serene coastal city.

Even about a month later, nothing more is known about the driver except that he was 62, angry about a divorce settlement and had bought the SUV a week earlier. He slashed himself in the neck before the police came and was in a coma when he was placed under arrest.

Similarly, not much is known about the perpetrators of the two mass attacks that followed the Zhuhai incident. In the first, eight people died in a stabbing spree at a vocational institute. The only information put out was that the assailant was angry because the institute had refused to give him a passing out certificate; he was also unhappy with the salary he was getting as an intern.

The second attack was a repeat of the Zhuhai incident: an SUV drove into a primary school just as children were coming in. Luckily, no one died but many were injured. Nothing at all is known about the driver, who was roughed up by bystanders before being arrested.

Attacks on random crowds are not unknown in China. This year, though, has seen too many such attacks for them to be brushed off as stray incidents. May, July, September, October, November, each month saw such attacks in cities small and big, including the capital.

The Zhuhai incident even drew a comment from President Xi Jinping about “strengthening prevention and control of risks at the source”. However when two attacks followed within days, the Chinese Communist Party spokesmen turned to talking about strict and swift punishments; a “crowd mood monitoring” is being contemplated.

What upsets citizens, though, is the vacuum in any information that might make them understand what drives these individuals to go on a killing spree. The angry and downtrodden turn their knives on those even weaker, said one netizen.

A professor’s comment that these were disadvantaged individuals who felt wronged and felt that they had no other way to be heard was taken down by censors. In Zhuhai, even the flowers left by grieving residents outside the sports complex were taken inside, away from public view. Asked one resident: “I don’t know from (when), even the right to feel sorrow has been taken away, all for social stability.”

There have been no follow-ups in the media, except to highlight the bravery of bystanders who intervened in a few cases. There have also been no investigation into the perpetrators’ histories and no conversations with their families. Can one blame journalists? On November 12, observed as Journalists’ Day in China, the top four special awards were given to the following stories: “Xi Jinping Unanimously Elected Chinese President, Chairman of the Central Military Commission” (a Xinhua report); “Enhance Spiritual Strength to Realize the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation” (a People’s Daily comment); “The Election of New Leaders of State Institutions” (a live broadcast by the China Media Group) and “Eastern Theatre Command Organizes Combat Readiness Patrols Encircling Taiwan” (a PLA News Media Centre report).

Surprisingly, lower down the list of award winners were actual investigative stories on survival against natural disasters; the cover up of a rat’s head found in a school meal; a State-owned coal mine’s denial of water to a plantation owner; and even on a State-owned construction company cutting corners in a high-speed rail project.

If these stories could be done, maybe, after a few weeks, the media will tell us more about these “angry downtrodden” killers.