Events organizer Abbey Musinguzi famously known as Abtex over his negligence in the new year’s event that caused the death of 10 people in a stampede at Freedom City Mall.
Addressing journalists on Monday at Naguru, Police Spokesperson Fred Enanga said before the event took place, Police went and monitored the venue and saw that there were a number of entrances and exits and they gave it a go ahead however when the event started organizers ordered for only one door to be opened for entrance clearance.
“We are investigating him for negligence that could have caused the death of 10 people and we are also actively searching for other organizers and managers of this concert. Local security guards 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 real bottleneck for some of the juveniles,” Enanga said.
Enanga explained that it was Abtex’s duty to monitor the safety of his customers within the hall and also make sure there were clear exit routes since the Police were busy manning security outside.
“We have observed that 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 5000 attendees, why should someone block all the other entries and exits and use only one gate of course they did it on assumption that there could be those who will enter in non-ticketed,” he added.
Enanga also revealed that Police are also investigating why Abtex’s management allowed children below 18 years to attend the concert without any adult.
“We are going to take action on why there were children. We have the names of dead people; there is an unidentified male juvenile age16, but identified, as Namyalo Mary 14, Daniel Kibuuka14, Nakakande Hadijah, Nakamwagi Viola, Mwanje Shafiq, Kizito Ibrahim aged11, Nakiimaati Hadijah,” he said.
He added; “Investigating are going on, so far our areas of interest are; access and exit controls, safety measures against crowd control, the safety measures against disorders and stampedes, the evacuation plans we want to establish whether paramedics and ambulances were on site, the number of stewards and ushers who were dedicated to the event and the number of people at concert among others.”
Police urged all organizers of events to always follow the safety measures of events as they are given to them by Police.
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