Following the gang rape and death of the 23-year-old woman in Delhi, people across the country have started keeping an eye on potential rapists to rescue women in distress. And several cases of public alertness have surfaced during the past week.

On December 26, a travelling ticket examiner was arrested at Moradabad station for allegedly attempting to rape a 21-year-old woman on a moving train, while on Saturday afternoon, an onlooker alerted police and helped them nab three men suspected of kidnapping a 17-year-old girl outside a shopping mall on the Delhi-Ghaziabad border.

On Tuesday in Bangalore, people caught a 22-year-old physically challenged youth while he was trying to lure two minor girls. The man, identified as Papaiah, was caught while he was moving towards an isolated place with the girls. Same day in Bathinda in Punjab, a 25-year-old man was handed over to police for trying to kidnap and molest a 13-year-old girl. Charanjit Channi, tried to waylay the girl who was on her way to school.

In another case late on Sunday night, a 24-year-old woman was saved in Bawana in the outskirts of Delhi when her neighbours chased and caught suspects after her family raised an alarm. While one of the accused is a staff in the defence ministry, the other is a head constable in the directorate of revenue intelligence, police said.

"There have been several instances where police failed to do justice to victims because witnesses refused to cooperate. On several occasions, people preferred to remain silent even after witnessing a crime against women. But in the past few days, we have seen a rapid change in the trend which is a good sign for us," a senior police officer said.