A book of condolence has been opened for anyone to pay their respects to Sabina Nessa, who was murdered as she walked to meet a friend in a bar in Kidbrooke, south-east London.

The book is at the OneSpace community centre, near Cator Park, close to where the 28-year-old primary schoolteacher’s body was found.

Hundreds of mourners, including her sister Jebina Yasmin Islam, attended an emotional candlelit vigil in Pegler Square in Kidbrooke on Friday evening, where she had been heading on the evening she was killed.

A separate rally earlier in the evening at the East London Mosque heard powerful testimony from other members of Nessa’s family. Candlelit vigils were also held across the country, from Glasgow to Margate to Bath.

Nessa’s killing has triggered an outpouring of emotion and anger, especially among women, and reignited concerns about the level of danger women face in Britain.

Speaking to the BBC on Saturday morning, the victims’ commissioner for England and Wales, Dame Vera Baird, said the police need to do more to make the streets safe for women and girls after Nessa’s death.

Baird, who said she attended a vigil for Nessa in Wood Green, London, on Friday evening, said there needed to be more onus on police to protect the public than on women to take precautions.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Apparently the police have been giving out rape alarms to women and giving leaflets out saying how to stay safe in a public place. It is less, isn’t it, about giving women leaflets on keeping themselves safe in dangerous places and more about the police making the streets safe for women?”

Nessa is believed to have been killed after leaving her home on Astell Road about 8.30pm last Friday to meet a friend at the Depot bar. The journey should have taken her five minutes.

Police fear the prime suspect for her murder may still be at large and are urgently seeking a man captured in CCTV images taken close to where she was found dead on Sunday. Two men arrested in connection with the alleged murder have been released under further investigation.

The balding man in the footage, who is seen dressed in black hooded coat and grey jeans and apparently clutching a red or orange object in his right hand, was in Pegler Square on the evening Nessa was attacked. Anyone with information about him is urged to come forward and contact police.

When it was put to Baird that there needed to be societal change along with police intervention, she said: “It certainly isn’t just a job for the police but, look, the police do have a very key role here.

“Three-quarters of women over 16 have been harassed in a public place and don’t feel safe. They need to know that the police understand that and will use all the powers they have got to keep the streets safe.”