Goyal hits back at Rahul, calls him 'merchant of hate' (Lead)

New Delhi : As Congress President Rahul Gandhi said that the latest lynching incident in Rajasthan's Alwar represents Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "brutal New India", Union Minister Piyush Goyal hit him back, terming him a "merchant of hate".

"Stop jumping with joy every time a crime happens, Rahul Gandhi. The state has already assured strict and prompt action. You divide the society in every manner possible for electoral gains & then shed crocodile tears. Enough is Enough. You are a merchant of hate," he said in a tweet.

Goyal's remarks came soon after Gandhi shared a news report claiming that the policemen, before taking the lynch victim to the hospital, stopped to take some refreshment.

Attacking the government, Gandhi said: "Policemen in Alwar took three hours to get a dying Rakbar Khan, the victim of a lynch mob, to a hospital just six km away. Why? They took a tea-break en route. This is Modi's brutal 'New India'.

The 'New India,' the Congress chief alleged, is where "humanity is replaced with hatred and people are crushed and left to die."

Rakbar Khan alias Akbar, 28, was on Saturday thrashed by a mob on suspicion of being a cow smuggler. The Rajasthan Police has since formed a high-level team to probe the reasons for the delay in taking him to hospital.

Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani also attacked the COngress leader saying that his family presided over the worst form of hate in 1984, after the killing of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.