Hundreds of people attended a candlelight vigil in Mississauga for 11-year-old Riya Rajkumar.
A patch of Meadowvale Village Green was covered with roses and candles Saturday night.
The park is located a short distance from Meadowvale Public School, where Rajkumar was enrolled as a Grade 5 student.
Faye Oxley came from North York with a friend to honour Rajkumar’s memory.
“The loss of a little girl is such a hard thing,” she said. “It was on her birthday, it was on Valentine’s Day.”
She said she didn’t know Riya or the family, but the loss hit her hard and was compounded by people who complained about the Amber Alert waking them up.
“Seeing the negative posts on social media of people being inconvenienced and woken up because of the Amber Alert, it just really hit hard for me.”
She suggested some of those who complained were missing the point of the alert in the first place.
“People seem to have forgotten what community is all about.”
Small children held roses in front of the candles, while older teens embraced each other, some on the verge of tears.
The vigil was one of two events planned to commemorate Rajkumar.
Brampton city councillor Rowena Santos is also organizing a community vigil in Garden Square in downtown Brampton Tuesday night. That event was scheduled to take place between 5:45 p.m. and 7 p.m.
“We are gathering the artists, the business community, the residents all throughout the city to make sure that we remember Riya in the most beautiful way,” Santos told CP24 on Saturday.
The girl's body was found in her father's Brampton home shortly after an Amber Alert was issued late Thursday night.
Peel regional police say they were called by Riya's mother after the child's father failed to return her home from her birthday celebrations.
Forty-one-year-old Roopesh Rajkumar was later charged with first-degree murder in Riya's death.
The city of Brampton is also planning to hold a vigil for Riya on Tuesday.
With files from CTV Toronto
