“The people who are going to die are like beasts, not humans,” the third-generation hangman and father-of-seven told AFP in his tiny flat in the northern town of Meerut.

“They are cruel people and that’s why they are going to lose their lives,” the 54-year-old said.

The group set to meet their demise before dawn on February 1 — although it may be delayed — were convicted for a brutal crime against Jyoti Singh, a 23-year-old student.

They took turns to sexually assault the woman with an iron rod on a bus as it meandered through the streets of Delhi at night. They then dumped her on a road.

She died two weeks later in a Singapore hospital from extensive internal injuries.

Angry demonstrations by tens of thousands of people broke out across the vast South Asian nation, sparking soul-searching about the plight of Indian women and leading to heavier sentences for sex crimes.