Why Delhi silently watched a stalker stab a woman 22 times

It's India's Kitty Genovese moment.

Genovese, a 28-year-old bar manager, was stabbed to death in Queens, New York, in 1964.

At the time, a news report, later found to be erroneous, claimed that 38 witnesses heartlessly overlooked as her stalker mounted the brutal attack on the young woman.

It prompted a deeper research into criminology and human psychology.

The studies, sparked by the exaggerated reportage on Genovese's murder, focused on what is perceived to be bystander apathy and diffusion of responsibility.

Research psychologists concluded that more the onlookers, less the chance of them to step forward to help a victim of street crimes.

They found most of such witnesses assume others around them will intervene.

This general reluctance in crowds to save someone from a murderous assault is what came to be known as the "Kitty Genovese syndrome."

More than 50 years later, this malady has afflicted urban India.

No passerby tried to stop the frenzied attacker as he repeatedly stabbed Karuna, a 22-year-old teacher, in Burari on Monday.

He kicked her as she lay unconscious, bleeding profusely.

Bystander apathy and diffusion of responsibility are playing out increasingly in our rapidly-urbanising nation.

On Sunday, a 28-year-old woman, Laxmi, was stabbed by her alleged stalker in Delhi's Inderpuri as neighbours watched.

Last month, hundreds of people walked and drove past Matibool, including a police van, as he bled to death near a gutter at Subhash Nagar, in the western part of the city.

A year ago, Latroi Barman fell into a crater of a road in a town in Madhya Pradesh.

Construction workers just didn't notice him lying in the hole. They filled it, burying Barman alive.

Genovese's story that 38 neighbours ignored her screams was flawed. Still, it left a transformative impact on Americans.

They did a great deal of soul-searching over apathy and urban indifference.

But the stories of Karuna, Laxmi and Barman are indisputable.

I wonder how long it will take for us to arrive at our moment of reckoning.