A man allegedly hurled a slipper at Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan while he was paying his respects to Jawaharlal Nehru University student J Muthukrishnan in Tamil Nadu’s Salem district on Thursday, PTI reported. Radhakrishnan called the incident “undesirable”, but asked the state Bharatiya Janata Party unit not to make a big issue out of it.

Muthukrishnan’s body was brought to Tamil Nadu on Thursday. As the Union minister addressed the media after paying his respects to Muthukrishnan, student activists protested against the Centre. Amidst the chaos, a man hurled a slipper and a stone at Radhakrishnan. However, the slipper missed the target and the man was taken into custody.

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While addressing the media, Radhakrishnan said that in the last 60 years, many such incidents have taken place. “I will not accept [accusations] that this [death] has happened because of the BJP coming to power,” he said.

Doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences on Wednesday said they had found no injury marks on his body and that he had died of asphyxiation. A five-member board had been set up to carry out the autopsy. The Delhi police on Wednesday had filed a complaint for abetment to suicide and under the SC & ST Prevention of Atrocities Act.

Muthukrishnan, a Dalit student from Salem district in Tamil Nadu, was pursuing an MPhil in Modern History at JNU. He had also studied at Hyderabad University, where Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula was a student. Vemula had committed suicide in January 2016 and it led to countrywide protests against discrimination in universities. Muthukrishnan’s family has also demanded an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation.