Indians have reacted with outrage after passers-by watched a woman being stabbed more than 20 times on a busy street in the capital, Delhi.
CCTV footage showed a man on a motorcycle approach schoolteacher Karuna, 22, who died in the attack.
He is seen stabbing her repeatedly as people walk by, before hitting her on the head with a stone and kicking her.
Locals did eventually intervene when he tried to escape. Police say they have charged the suspect with murder.
During the attack, at least one man does try to approach the assailant but backs off after being threatened and is seen leaving the scene. Many others stop to see what is happening but fail to help.
“She was attacked as she was walking with her cousin at around 9am. It seems that the assailant started liking her when they used to be neighbours earlier, but since he was married, she never paid attention,” senior police official Esha Pandey told the BBC.
Local media had quoted the victim’s brother as saying the assailant had a history of harassing his sister, and the family had filed a police complaint against him.
Earlier deputy commissioner of police, Madhur Verma, told reporters that “the family had lodged a complaint four-five months back and both the families had reached a compromise”.
Images of the murder and the fact that many passers-by did not stop to help the victim have caused outrage.
The stabbing in Burari is the second instance of a woman being fatally attacked by an alleged stalker in the Indian capital in two days.
On Sunday evening, 28-year-old Laxmi was stabbed to death in front of her house in full view of her neighbours by a man who then killed himself, the Times of India newspaper reported .
Her family told reporters that she had previously filed a police complaint against him for stalking.
Scrutiny of violence against women in India has grown since the 2012 gang rape and murder of a student on a Delhi bus, and has led to the formulation of tougher laws aimed at dealing with such attacks.
However, brutal attacks against women and children continue to be reported from across the country.
– BBC
