Authorities have filed criminal misdemeanour charges against five people and while one person was charged with a criminal offence, after guests of cafes in Knin were beaten while watching a soccer match of the Belgrade-based Crvena Zvezda club on TV, Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said on Saturday.

The incident occurred on Wednesday and involved several guests of cafes in the villages of Uzdolje and Djevrske, including a 9-year-old boy and the owner of a cafe, were attacked.

“The assaults should be condemned just as any violence should be condemned. The state institutions, notably those whose responsibility is to ensure peace and order are supposed to act promptly and efficiently,” he minister said.

“The police have shown that they act efficiently and they will be efficient in the future too,” he said after a commemorative ceremony in the village of Zuta Lokva where a tribute was paid to the four Croatian policemen who were killed in the village at the start of the Croatian Homeland War in 1991.