Indonesia police: Stadium exit gates too small for escape vehicles
A police patrol drives past a section of the North Jakarta Stadium during a demonstration after Saturday’s football match between Indonesia and Malaysia, in Jakarta, Indonesia Uliyani, Indonesia, May 29, 2018. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia’s police said on Monday they had received a number of complaints from residents that the stadium exit gates were too small to accommodate vehicles escaping from a match in the country’s capital city.
The gates were in the middle of a road that is a popular spot for people on the way to the beach and for young men to walk to a nearby nightclub.
“We have seen a lot of complaints from the community that the exit gate are not big enough to fit vehicles,” Kebesaran Djujadi, head of the Traffic and Transportation Ministry, told reporters.
Police said that on Saturday, a minibus of a private coach company got stuck in the narrow road during a match between Indonesia and Malaysia in the national stadium at the weekend, and passengers had to be carried out of the stadium by police on tricycles.
Officials with the company were not available to comment on their driver’s actions.
The incident led authorities to install metal grills on the gates of the stadium, said Djujadi.
Djujadi said it was not known how long the problem would last and that the gates were still open on Monday when Indonesia plays the United Arab Emirates in a soccer match on Tuesday.
In a letter to President Joko Widodo, Djujadi said Indonesia was making progress to curb illegal parking at sports stadiums.
“The police are working with the team to find and punish the violators and are improving the gates on the ground level,” he said.
Reuters reported in March that Indonesia had to hire 60 police officers in an effort to remove a growing number of illegal parking spots at a sports stadium.
More than $4 million USD had been spent on the effort to curb illegal parking at Jakarta International Airport, according to a report in Indonesian media, but no prosecutions had been made.
Djujadi’s letter, sent to the president on Sunday, said the traffic was not an isolated incident and the government was taking action.
“The government received a number of complaints from the residents of the