Bangalore: The Kerala government has rejected a temple's plan to please the presiding deity with a human blood bath.

Deviyodu Sreevidvari Vaidyanatha temple in Vithura in rural Thiruvananthapuram was to conduct a " rakthabhishekam" (the act of bathing the idol with blood) of the idol of Goddess Kali, the presiding deity.

The temple authorities had announced the plan through notices put up inside the complex.

But temple affairs minister Kadakampalli Surendran directed the temple management to abstain from the "primitive" practice.

The blood ritual was to have been held during the 14-day temple festival set to begin on Sunday.

The temple had made arrangements to draw blood from devotees by deploying doctors who would use disposable syringes.

Slamming the proposed revival of the primitive ritual, Surendran directed police and the district authorities not to allow the practice.

"The attempt to revive such primitive rituals will be dangerous and a big insult to a state like Kerala," the minister posted on Facebook late on Wednesday night.

"There is information that a communal organisation is behind the revival of the ritual," he added, without naming any.

Surendran urged the people, irrespective of religion, caste or politics, to come forward to resist the return of such "inhuman" practices.

Thiruvananthapuram rural superintendent of police Ashok Kumar told reporters that the temple officials had been issued strict orders against the practice. "We will book the temple authorities if they go ahead despite our warning," the officer said.

He added that it was the first time in memory that the temple had tried to bring back the ritual.

An official of the Travancore Devaswom Board, which manages temples in south Kerala, said Deviyodu Sreevidvari Vaidyanatha temple had been mixing turmeric with lime to form a blood-red liquid for the ritual for many years.

"Since the minister has instructed the police and the district officials not to allow the ritual (of blood bath), I don't think the temple will proceed with it," said the official who did not want to be named.

Anil Kumar K.N., president of the Kerala Yukthivadi Sangham (rationalists' organisation), told this newspaper that the law did not permit the use of human blood for any religious ritual.

"There are laws governing all this. What the temple is planning is a total violation of penal sections," the senior lawyer said.

Anil Kumar said his organisation would take up the matter and, if needed, seek legal recourse as it had done in the past against "superstitious practices".

Temple rituals in Kerala have come under the glare of late with people objecting to archaic and inhuman rituals.

R. Sreelekha, director-general of police for prisons and correctional services, had recently assailed a ritual at the Attukal Bhagavathy temple, also in the state capital.

In her blog, Sreelekha had last week demanded action against the ritual called "Kuthiyottam", where nearly a thousand boys between the ages of 5 and 12 years are made to suffer for five days. They are made to sleep on the floor wearing nothing but loin cloth and taken through several activities at the temple, culminating with each of them getting pierced on their flanks with silver threads.

A similar ritual is followed at Chettikulangara temple in Alappuzha district, also in south Kerala, where boys are made to go through such piercing.