Yet a hangman was needed in Assam. Magazines and newspapers published stories that read like macabre help-wanted ads: Large nation searching for someone willing to slip the noose around the neck of a murderer.

In Assam, state prison officials reluctantly began a search. Assam’s last execution was in 1990 and the memory still resonated with those who had participated in it. “I was very conflicted,” said Banikanta Baruah, a retired jailer who supervised the execution. “On one hand, I needed to perform my duty as a jailer, yet on the other, I sympathized with the person being hanged.”

Prison officials made calls to their peers in the states of West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. West Bengal was home to Nata Mullick, who had conducted the country’s last hanging at the age of 87. But he died two years ago, so Assamese officials turned to Uttar Pradesh.

“They promised to send someone,” said S. Thakuria, Assam’s top prison official.

In Uttar Pradesh, the logical place to look was here in the city of Meerut, the home of a family known for executions. Kalu Kumar, himself the nephew of a hangman, had achieved national fame in 1989 by hanging one of the two assassins of Indira Gandhi, the former prime minister. He died several years ago but passed the trade to his son, Mammu Singh, who claimed to have performed 11 hangings.

Mr. Singh would have been eligible for the Assam job, but he died May 19. Officials called the state’s only other hangman, in the city of Lucknow, but he had broken his arm and was not accepting work. It seemed the search had reached a dead end, at least figuratively. Then Mammu Singh’s eldest son, Pawan Kumar, decided to enter the family business. Ten days after his father’s death, Mr. Kumar applied for government certification as a hangman.