Vigil held in Glasgow's George Square for trainee doctor who was raped and killed in India

Medical professionals gathered at Glasgow’s George Square on Friday in a show of solidarity with Indian women.

One of 14 vigils across the UK, the gathering was held two weeks on from the rape and murder of a trainee doctor in Kolkata, in India.

The incident sparked mass outrage across India, and has since led to the largest doctors strike the country has ever seen.

Standing in solidarity thousands of miles away, Indian medics gathered at Glasgow’s George Square on Friday afternoon to voice their anger.

“It’s almost like we have normalised rape in our country, even in this day and age, we can’t send our girls safely anywhere”, one of the medics told STV News.

“it’s extremely shocking, it’s very painful and it is absolutely devastating. It’s a failure of the system, not just individuals.”

It was inside a hospital in Kolkata that the 31-year-old’s body was found. It is believed she was attacked while resting during a long shift.

This incident isn’t the first time a case like this has shocked India.

In 2012, the gang rape and murder of a young woman on a new Delhi bus prompted the nation’s government to enact tougher laws against sexual violence.

But the latest available government data shows authorities are still recording around 90 rapes on average per day.

With 90 per cent of attacks going unreported, it remains difficult to accurately highlight the true scale of the issue.

Dr Hemangini Gupta, from the University of Edinburgh, said: “In general there is an institutional and government failure to account for the fact that women occupy public spaces, and they need to be provided for.

“There is also the feeling that women and girls have when they report an instance like this, that the first thing that’ll happen is that they’ll be blamed, and that their actions will be looked at as they brought this upon themselves.”