Indonesia presses for answers after deadly football stampede

Dozens of Indonesian police have been placed under investigation over a stampede at a football match on Saturday that killed 125 people.

It comes as authorities sought to determine what caused one of the world's deadliest stadium disasters and who was to blame.

Panicked spectators were crushed as they tried to flee the overcrowded stadium in Malang, East Java, after police fired tear gas to disperse fans of Arema FC, who had poured onto the pitch after a 3-2 home defeat to Persebaya Surabaya.

Football's world governing body FIFA stipulates no "crowd control gas" should be used at matches, and Choirul Anam, a commissioner for Indonesian rights body Komnas HAM, told a news briefing that if gas hadn't been fired "maybe there wouldn't have been chaos."

The death toll was the largest at a football match since 1964, when 328 were killed in a crush as Peru hosted Argentina in Lima.

Nine police were stripped of their positions and the local police chief transferred, police spokesperson Dedi Prasetyo said, adding that 28 officers were under investigation.

The decision to use tear gas was among the issues being looked into, he added.

Mourners gathered outside the stadium on Monday. Some scattered flowers over an Arema club shirt while others prayed quietly, or wept, among them the club's manager Ali Fikri.

Chief security minister Mahfud MD said the government would form a fact-finding team, comprising academics, football experts and officials, to probe what happened.

"They have been asked... in the next coming days to reveal the culprits that were involved in the crime," Mahfud told a news conference.

A government official said those killed on Saturday included 32 minors.

President Joko Widodo ordered the football federation to suspend all top flight matches until the investigation was complete.