The brother of a murdered Indian gang rape victim says her family will not rest until her killers are hanged.

Six men are facing murder charges after allegedly luring the 23-year-old onto a bus in New Delhi on December 16 and then taking turns to rape her before throwing her out of the moving vehicle.

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The identity of the young woman - who has been dubbed Nirbhaya, or 'Braveheart' - is still under wraps.

But in an interview with the Indian Express newspaper, her brother said he was seething with anger and that the family wants the death penalty handed out to those who carried out the attack.

"The fight has just begun. We want all the accused hanged, and we will fight for that, till the end," her brother said in the interview.

Speaking to the same newspaper, the young woman's father spoke of the impact of the tragedy on the family, saying her mother is consumed by grief.

"My wife had hardly eaten in the last two weeks," he said.

"She was exhausted ... I think she was not ready to face the shock of our daughter's death, despite doctors always telling us that she was serious.

"She cried intermittently all of Saturday, but it got worse on the flight back home."

The father said he too was struggling to accept the news.

"It is too painful. I have not gone inside her room. She was born in this house. Her books, clothes they are all here," he said.

"It is hard to believe I will never hear her voice again, she will never read books to me in English again."

The unidentified victim died of her injuries in a Singapore hospital over the weekend and her body was flown back to Delhi, where it was cremated.

India does have the death penalty on its statute book, although executions are rarely carried out.

Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the only surviving gunman of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was hanged last month but it was the first execution for eight years.

The gang rape case has triggered a mass outpouring of grief and anger in India, sparking a number of protests in New Delhi.

A demonstrator lights candles during a candlelight vigil for the gang-rape victim ( Reuters: Ahmad Masood )

Official figures show there were 228,650 reported crimes against women in India last year, with the number of rapes in the capital rising 17 per cent to 661 this year.

"I think every time a rape happens in this city, we all you know get excited and then the government makes all these promises but there's no follow through," one protester in Delhi said.

The government has proposed tougher laws including 30 year jail terms for rapists and chemical castration.

New Delhi's government has also introduced a special hotline for women to call if they are threatened.

But already there are problems - no-one was answering when people called the '181' distress number, and those calling for better services have been left unimpressed.

"[The] government has been made to realise loud and clear that people are not going to sit quiet," Dr Ranjana Kumari, from the Centre for Social Research, said.

"We hope and pray that it will be different because the society is very agitated ... everybody is keeping a vigil on what promises have been made, whether they will be kept or not."

Dr Kumari warns the government could face serious social upheaval if it does not address the problem of sexual assault.

"At the moment, everything is within the democratic boundaries, that is people are peaceful, barring one or two evenings when there was more provocation from the side of the police and people threw stones," she said.

"But I can't insure that this anger will remain within the democratic boundaries.

"It may become very violent, because there are young people, they feel desperate, they feel angry, they are frustrated with the government response, with the response from the systems.

"We can't live for too long in failed systems. Systems have to be put in place so in future if we want to see a society which is more peaceful and democratic I think government will have to respond."

The six men charged over the attack are due to face court early this month.

ABC/AFP

Editor's note: (February 22) The article originally reported that "228,650 of the total 256,329 violent crimes recorded last year were against women". However, this was wrong, as not all of the 228,650 crimes against women in India were categorised as "violent" crimes.