Kazakhstan Shaken by Riots after Heartthrob's Concert

Investigators in Kazakhstan were on Monday probing how a glitzy concert at an upscale shopping center by a wildly popular heartthrob Kazakh singer led to riots that left dozens wounded.

More than 160 people were arrested after the unrest, which broke out late on Saturday night at the concert by pop singer Kairat Nurtas at the Prime Plaza shopping center in the country's largest city Almaty, the local city hall said in a statement.

Investigators said they had launched criminal probes into possible hooliganism and also neglect of duties by the organizers of the event.

Local media reports said that the disorder broke out when Nurtas, 24, ended his concert prematurely after fans broke through a police cordon to get closer to him on the stage.

They then jumped onto the stage and started throwing stones and bottles in apparent frustration, the reports said.

The boyish singer has a particularly avid female following.

Some 90 people were injured in the scuffles that followed the concert and nine of them were hospitalized, a spokesperson for the regional health authority told Agence France Presse.

The shopping center had organised the appearance of Nurtas, who has a huge following in Kazakhstan for his sentimental love ballads, to mark the end of a long-running karaoke competition.

They blamed the disturbances on the singer himself, accusing him of letting down his fans by only singing one song.

"He took the decision to leave the stage after clearly getting scared of his own fans. This aroused dissatisfaction among the audience and led to the mass riots," the Prime Plaza statement said.

"If Kairat Nurtas had been professional and had continued the concert then everything would have been fine."

But speaking at a hastily convened news conference in Almaty, Nurtas denied any responsibility and urged his fans to stay calm.

"It was the organizers who asked me to leave the stage because people had broken down the barriers and had started running to the stage," he explained.

"Projectors started to fall down and bottles were thrown. And I left. I urge everyone to solve this problem sensibly and without scandal," he said.

His producer Gulzira Usenkyzy said that security measures had not been fully observed by the organizers at the event and only 20 security guards had been on duty.

"We are waiting for the results of the investigation -- the investigation will find the guilty party and then we will look further," she said.

"If Kairat is asked to appear as a witness, he will and will describe what happened," she added.

The rioting was among the worst disturbances seen in the former Kazakh capital in recent years.

Footage posted on YouTube said to be of the disturbances showed people running in panic as a line of security forces moved in to quell the riots in an empty car park outside the shopping center.

Ruled by strongman President Nursultan Nazarbayev since before the fall of the USSR, Kazakhstan enjoys a reputation as the most stable state in Central Asia.

Nurtas said it was vital that the incident did not cast a shadow over the country's image.

"We live in a flourishing country and many now know us abroad. Let us not spoil the country's image. This incident is very unpleasant for me," said the singer.

Kazakhstan's image has already been dented by violent clashes between striking oil workers and the police in the Caspian Sea region which left 15 people dead in December 2011.