By Xinhua,
Jakarta : Twenty people were killed and dozens of others were hurt during a distribution of tithe in Pasuruan regency of East Java province on Monday, a police office said.
Thousands of people who come into the distribution place in Purworejo district on Monday morning turn to panic, causing several people be trampled on by others.
“Twenty people died and ten others are being hospitalized after they were stepped on,” a police officer in the district Sadewo Anggito told Xinhua on telephone from the district.
He said that the incident hurts 86 others.
Metro television footage showed thousands of villagers, many of them women and children become panic and jostled for the tithe.
Indonesian Muslims, who have sufficient income, are obligated to pay the tithe during the holy month of Ramadhan with reward of benefit as much as several times higher than that out the month.