Union minister Piyush Goyal called Congress President Rahul Gandhi a “merchant of hate” on Monday, hours after Gandhi criticised the Rajasthan Police’s response to an alleged lynching in the state’s Alwar district. The minister took to Twitter to ask Gandhi to “stop jumping with joy every time a crime happens”.

Gandhi had criticised the police for allegedly taking three hours to admit the victim Rakbar Khan to a hospital just 6 km away. “This is Modi’s brutal ‘New India’, where humanity is replaced with hatred and people are crushed and left to die,” the Congress president had tweeted.

Khan was allegedly beaten to death by a mob while he and his friend were transporting two cows and their calves near Lalwandi village in the district’s Ramgarh tehsil.

The police officers allegedly stopped for tea along the way, and also waited to arrange a vehicle to transport the seized cows to a shelter, NDTV has reported. Three men have been arrested in the case so far.

Minister of Textiles Smriti Irani accused the Congress president of practising “vulture politics” while Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore asked him to “stop using a crime for political gains”.