An official from the firm handling crowd control at the July 21 fireworks display where 11 people were crushed to death fabricated stories about unruly youths and unresponsive riot police in order to shift the blame for the tragedy, police sources claimed Monday.

The official, currently being questioned by Hyogo Prefectural Police, told investigators he consulted a senior Akashi municipal official in compiling the report on the accident. Neither of the officials nor the security company were identified.

Prefectural police suspect that the municipal government may have known of the falsified report by the security company, which had been commissioned by the city of Akashi to handle crowd control at the event, the sources said.

Kazuo Minami, chief of the city's commerce and tourism section, denied that the city cooperated with the security company in making the alleged falsification.