The Congress ' title=' Congress '>Congress criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday for not speaking out against the self-styled cow vigilantes who were beating and killing people on the pretext of cow protection.

"You save cow, but humans should also be saved," Congress ' title=' Congress '>Congress senior leader and former minister Kapil Sibal said in a press conference here.

He said that Modi does not even speak about such incidents.

"Our Prime Minister does not speak (on these issues), whereas his ministers were saying that it didn't even happen," he said, referring to the Alwar incident in which a man succumbed to his injuries after being beaten by gau rakshaks last week.

Minorities Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi denied that the incident even took place.

"We must ask overselves whom should the government protect," he said.

The Congress ' title=' Congress '>Congress leader listed other similar incidents in the past three years said this must be stopped.

The Alwar lynching occurred on Saturday when a group of self-styled cow vigilantes attacked dairy farmer Pehlu Khan in Behror area.

Khan was travelling in a truck with two cows and two calves. The attackers accused Khan of illegally smuggling cows for slaughter. However, his family said he had bought the animals for his small dairy business.

In another incident in 2015, Akhlaq, a resident of Bisara village near Dadri in Uttar Pradesh, was lynched by a Hindu mob on September 28 for allegedly possessing and eating beef.