Taking note of the inhuman ritual of burying children for a minute, practiced in a Tamil Nadu temple, the Supreme Court issued notices to the state and the Union government seeking their response to a petition highlighting the practice.

A bench comprising Chief Justice V N Khare and Justice S B Sinha issued the notices on Thursday after petitioner non-government organisation Common Cause, through counsel Ashwini Kumar, said that the incident, telecast on TV channels has shocked the conscience of the entire nation.

Terming the practice at Perayur village temple near Madurai as 'horrendous, barbaric and irrational', the public interest petition sought a direction from the court to the authorities to take immediate steps to stop this ritual.

The petitioner also said that the governments and other authorities should chalk out educative programmes to increase the awareness among the people on the danger posed by the practice of such rituals to their children and how it infringed the fundamental rights of the innocent.

Expressing concern over such a blind ritual being practiced in the modern age, senior advocate Kumar sought intervention of the court for stoppage of the ritual.