Concerned and emotional members of Melbourne's Indian community have paid tribute to the young woman who died after she was brutally assaulted and raped in New Delhi.
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Around 40 people gathered on the steps of the Indian consulate on St Kilda Road this morning to light candles and pray for the 23-year-old, whose death on Saturday morning has sparked protests in India.
There were calls for the death penalty, an end of misogynistic attitudes and changes to India's sexual assault laws.
Many said the Indian government was not listening.
"They should not arrest the offenders or the accused and just hold them for a trial. They should shoot them on the spot," Navjeet Jhaji, a 25-year-old lawyer said.
"That would be the best treatment for such people."
She said Indian women should be able to leave their homes without fearing for their life.
"There should be freedom for the woman to just move out freely on the streets without having the knowledge that they will be abducted by someone or kidnapped by someone, or raped."
Trams rattled along St Kilda Road as people expressed their anguish about what had happened.
Ravi Bhatia, the former chief executive and founder of Primus in Australia, said sexual violence was an all too common occurrence in India.
"Tens of thousands of women in India are sexually harassed, beaten and brutalised, raped and murdered, denied justice and basic human rights," he told the small crowd.
"We know what the problems are. Some of these are bad misogynistic attitudes, indifference of the police towards protection and justice, and criminalisation of politics."
Men and women carried home-made signs reading "Pray for the victim" and "We want fast track justice on rape case".
The small crowd bowed their heads for one minute's silence, before continuing speeches in English and Hindi.
Professor Raman Singh from the faculty of engineering at Monash University said there was still a great deal of stigma around sexual assault.
"Woman is the victim. She doesn't have to feel stigmatised about it. It us, the men, who do these things to women."
Avinash Raina, from the Indian Solidarity Group, said perpetrators of rape should face the death penalty or life imprisonment.
He said he was concerned with how Indian police had handled the case.
"They always go through politicians. They have not handled this in the proper way...They are not listening to people, they are listening to politicians."
Manoj Kumar organised the event on Facebook last night when heard the pysiotherapy student had died.
He said the death of the 23-year-old had touched so many people because it could be their mother, sister or relative.
But he said he was upset by the Indian government's response to the violent incident.
"The prime minister is a very intelligent man but he doesn't want to say anything. He is surrounded by a mixture of parties and if they take the support away he is out of the picture. Law is blind, police is deaf and our prime minister is mute."
