Indonesian police firing tear gas was the main trigger for a deadly soccer stampede at a stadium in East Java last month, according to the country's human rights commission.

In a report released on Wednesday, officials from the human rights commission (Komnas HAM) said 135 people — including 38 children — had died, mostly from asphyxiation, in the stampede after the match at Kanjuruhan stadium in Malang regency on October 1. 

Indonesian authorities and the Indonesian Football Association (PSSI) have faced questions and criticism in recent weeks over why police had fired 45 rounds of tear gas inside the stadium, a crowd=control measure banned by the world soccer governing body, FIFA.

"There needs to be legal responsibility," Komnas HAM chair Ahmad Taufan Damanik said.

These are similar conclusions to those made last month by a government fact-finding team, which found that multiple factors such as excessive use of tear gas, locked doors, an overcapacity stadium and failure to properly implement safety procedures exacerbated the deadly crush.

Komnas HAM commissioners specified seven human rights violations in one of the world's worst stadium disasters, including the excessive use of force and violation of children's rights, as the fatalities included dozens of minors.