A page in social networking website Facebook causes anger among government leaders and online activists in Italy.

The page advocates the use of children with Down syndrome as targets for practice shooting.

Authorities are now on a mission to trace the person or group who helped set up the Facebook page that had a photo of a baby with Down syndrome with “idiot” superimposed on it. The page had almost 1,700 members by Sunday afternoon.

The page calls Down syndrome children as “foul creatures” and it proposes a solution to getting rid of them by making them targets in shooting ranges.

Mara Carfagna, the equality minister, has pledged that they would take legal actions to persecute those who organized the page.

Groups denouncing the anti-Down syndrome page have been set up in Facebook to counter the call. The groups have already attracted more than 17,000 members.

The move by police to close the site page may involve complicated procedures as Facebook is based in California.

According to ANSA, an Italian news agency, one in 1,200 babies with Down syndrome are born in Italy. There are currently 38,000 people with Down syndrome in the country right now with 61 percent of them aged above 25 years.