A young mum was attacked as she carried her baby son on a busy footpath.
The hooded attacker grabbed the 19-year-old from behind as she walked along the path near to Marmion Street in Cumbernauld.
He pulled her down to the ground at around 11.30am on Tuesday.
She managed to protect her one-year-old son, but sustained an injury to her face.
Police are probing whether the thug was attempting to rob the young woman, or if he planned to harm her.
The suspect, who is described as around 6ft tall and of slim build, ran off without saying anything.
He was wearing a black hooded top and dark coloured jeans.
Police have been carrying out inquiries in the local area in an effort to find out more about the suspect.
Inspector Phil Rose said: "It's not clear why this man approached the woman and pulled her back, we don't know if he intended to rob her or if his intention was to harm her.
"The footpath is well used by local people and at that time of the day there would have been people out and about.
"If you know who this man is, or if you have any knowledge about him or the crime, please do get in touch with us."
Anyone with information is asked to contact Cumbernauld Police Office on 101.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article