Indonesia Police chief have confirmed that six people including some Police officers and organizers are charged with crimes in connection with a stampede at a football stadium that claimed at least 131 lives.
The maximum punishment for the crime of criminal negligence causing death is five years.
The catastrophe occurred last week when police used tear gas against fans who barged onto the field following a loss.
Numerous people attempted to escape via the doors, which led to a fatal stampede.
Public ire over the incident has been largely directed towards the police and their deployment of tear gas. In Malang, where the incident occurred, the local police chief was sacked and nine other officers were suspended.
Three police officers who used tear gas on spectators, the chairman of the host club’s organizing committee, Arema FC, and one of the club’s security personnel are all now accused.
National police head Listyo Sigit Prabowo informed local media that two of the police officers had given the order for their colleagues to use tear gas. He stated that although the third was aware of FIFA’s safety guidelines prohibiting the use of tear gas at sporting events, they were not followed.
2,000 officers, including members of multiple police units and military, were reportedly present at the stadium that evening, according to the authorities.
Videos from the event, which happened on Saturday night in East Java, showed Arema FC supporters storming the field following the final whistle to protest their team’s 2-3 loss, and police responded by shooting tear gas.
Supporters who fled the gas were crushed and smothered, injuring more than 320 additional persons. Children between the ages of three and 17 were among the victims, according to Indonesia’s deputy minister of children and women’s affairs.
Online video depicted fans scaling fences to get away. In several videos, it seemed like there were dead bodies on the ground.
“We [saw] these different police forces running around the pitch, brutally kicking people, hitting people. This is completely unacceptable behaviour,” Jacqui Baker, a policing expert, told the BBC after the incident.
Police said, however, that the club’s administrators had broken safety regulations by letting in more people than the stadium could hold. They said that people couldn’t fit through the exits since they were so small.
One of the worst stadium mishaps ever was the stampede. In Sheffield’s Hillsborough stadium in 1989, a crush resulted in the deaths of 97 Liverpool supporters in the UK. The club’s FA Cup semifinal matchup versus Nottingham Forest was being watched by them.
What happened in Indonesia?
According to a Washington Post investigation, the deadly crush in Malang last weekend that left at least 130 people dead was caused by a large bombardment of tear gas shells launched by Indonesian police at soccer fans.
Fans rushed for the exits when at least 40 projectiles were fired towards the crowd in a 10-minute period, in breach of national protocol and international security norms for soccer matches. The weapons included flares, tear gas, and flash bangs.
The investigation discovered that because some of the exits were blocked off, some fans were either crushed to death or stomped to death by walls and metal gates. Several inquiries for comment to the Indonesia National Police went unanswered.
The review shows how the police’s use of tear gas in response to several hundred fans entering the field caused a huge surge at the southern end of Kanjuruhan stadium, where survivors claim the majority of the deaths occurred. It is based on an examination of more than 100 videos and photographs, interviews with 11 witnesses, and analyses by crowd control experts and civil rights advocates.
According to witnesses, several doors were locked, which heightened the fear. The president of the nation, who has mandated a safety evaluation of the nation’s stadiums, verified this.
How the tragedy at the Indonesian stadium played out?
Videos evidence revealed that cops opened fire on spectators on the pitch or in the seats at least 40 times shortly after the game ended. The “tribunes,” or seating sections, 11, 12, and 13 caught a lot of the gas’s drift.
Videos reveal that thousands of people were forced to leave their seats as a result of police firing tear gas onto the field and up into the stands from their position in front of section 13. According to eyewitnesses, bottlenecks developed at the exits because they were barely wide enough for one or two individuals to pass through at once.
After watching the recordings shared by The Post, Clifford Stott, a professor at Keele University in Britain who researches the policing of sports fans, concluded that what transpired at Kanjuruhan was a direct result of police intervention coupled with subpar stadium management. He asserted that the police’s excessive use of tear gas, together with the assistance of another expert in crowd control and four civil rights groups.
The final whistle was blown in the match between East Java rivals Arema FC and Persebaya Surabaya at 9:39 p.m. on Saturday.
The majority of the attendees were Arema FC supporters, who had just witnessed their team lose to Persebaya for the first time in 23 years.
A few fans hopped the barrier to approach the Arema players as they started to leave the field.
Several hundred fans had gathered on the field by around 9:45 p.m.
Security guards at the exit started pushing back the crowd and scattering the spectators two minutes after the players were led off the field. The conflict quickly got worse.
Officers in military fatigues began to drive spectators away from sections 11, 12, and 13 by kicking, punching, and slapping them with riot shields and batons. As they attempted to climb over metal barriers and return to the stands, some people collapsed.
How it happened
Police used flash blitzes and tear gas at around 9:50 o’clock. Videos demonstrate how gas and flare smoke moved toward the southern seating areas.
People in sections 9 and 10 of the audience reported to The Post that they coughed and their eyes instantly began to tear up. Rows of people were almost completely covered in chemicals in sections 12 and 13. According to witnesses, tribune 13’s cries reverberated throughout the stands.
