Music Promoter Abtex Arrested Over Freedom City Stampede That Killed Nine People
By Uganda Online Media
Police spokesperson, Fred Enanga has confirmed the arrest of popular event promoter and organizer, Abbey Musinguzi, a.k.a Abtex over the new year’s eve stampede at Freedom City Mall which saw 10 people die and others severely injured.
According to police in Katwe, the 10 died during a stampede on new year’s eve at the event dubbed Party after Party organized by Abtex and his team at Freedom City along Entebbe road.
Following the sad incident, Enanga said Abtex has been arrested over negligence and will help in the ongoing investigations.
“We are investigating him for negligence that could have caused the death of 10 people,” Enanga said on Monday.
According to Enanga, the stampede came when the MC of the event made an announcement for the revellers to move out to watch a fireworks display and return in one exit.
“Security had locked four other exits and entries and the revellers had to use one point of entry and exit. Therefore, several victims were trapped and tramped upon through the narrow passage which became a bottleneck for many, mostly juveniles,” Enanga said.
While police at Katwe insisted they had inspected the venue and had passed all the tests including multiple entries and exit points with the presence of Counter Terrorism Police officers who were in charge of the fireworks display, Enanga revealed that later, when the event started, police was tasked with manning the outer security which included screening those who were entering whereas the organizer was in charge of the inner security.
Police say, the inside security perimeter is where the money for entry was being collected and to ensure no gate-crashers, the organisers closed four other entry and exit points and only left one.
“The organisers tend to put profits before the safety of revellers and in this incident did the same to avoid gate crashers. There are over 500 attendees, why should someone block all the other entries and exits and use only one place,” Enanga said.
He said investigations by the Criminal Investigations Directorate, Crime Intelligence, Counter Terrorism and Forensics into the incident are still ongoing to ascertain whether there were enough stewards to help in crowd control but also paramedics to help in case of any incident as it happened.
Enanga further revealed that they are also investigating why children 18 were allowed to attend the concert without any adult.
