BJP denies links to Udaipur killers after Congress tweets images, flags media report

"We have no links to either of the accused," Sadiq Khan, the chief of the BJP's minority wing in the state, said at a news conference.

He rather blamed the "inability" of the Congress government in Rajasthan for the murder.

The Congress had, meanwhile, alleged that one of the main accused in the brutal killing of Kanhaiya is a "BJP member" and asked whether the centre had moved quickly to transfer the case to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to keep it under the carpet.

Senior Congress leader Pawan Khera cited a media group's "very sensational disclosure" in connection with the Udaipur incident which pointed to the BJP links with Riyaz Attari, also called Riaz Akhtari.

"The killer of Kanhaiya Lal, Riyaz Attari is a member of the BJP,"  Khera said in a tweet, joining other Congress leaders who posted similar claims.

BJP's IT cell chief Amit Malviya dismissed the media reports claiming the link as "fake news".

"I am not surprised that you are peddling #FakeNews. The Udaipur murderers WERN'T members of the BJP. Their attempt to infiltrate was like the LTTE assassin's attempt to enter the Congress to kill Rajiv Gandhi," he tweeted.

At the news briefing, Congress's Pawan Khera cited pictures and posts linking Attari with BJP leaders -- Irshad Chainwala and Mohammad Tahir.

"It has also come to the fore in the same disclosure that the main accused Riyaz Attari often participated in the programmes of Rajasthan BJP leader and former minister Gulabchand Kataria," he alleged.

Kanhaiya Lal was murdered on June 28 by two cleaver-wielding men who filmed the grisly killing and later gloated about it in a video.

He was at his shop in Udaipur's busy Dhan Mandi market when the attackers Gos Mohammad and Riyaz Akhtari walked in posing as customers before attacking him.

The duo was arrested hours after the crime and later, two more people, who were allegedly involved in the recce of Kanahaiya's shop were arrested.

Days before Kanahiya Lal was killed, he had informed the local police that he had received threats over a social media post shared from his, apparently supporting former BJP leader Nupur Sharma's remark on Prophet Mohammed.