José Luis Abarca accused of deaths of six people on night of terror that culminated in probable massacre of 43 students

The former mayor of the southern Mexican city of Iguala has been charged with the murder of six people who died in a chain of confusing events that began when municipal police attacked a convoy of student teachers on 26 September.

The attacks on the students took place during a night of terror that included the arrest, subsequent disappearance and probable massacre of 43 students after police handed them over to a local drug gang.

José Luis Abarca allegedly ordered the police to attack the students because he feared they were going to disrupt an event designed to promote a bid by his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, to replace him as mayor in 2015.

Surviving students, from the radical teacher training college in Ayotzinapa, about two hours’ drive away, said they were in Iguala to commandeer buses to use in future protests. They say the attacks began when police blocked their convoy as they were leaving town at about 9pm. The students claim some of the passengers descended from the bus to confront the officers, who began firing indiscriminately in their direction for about 30 minutes before making dozens of arrests.

One student was shot in the face in the first attack; several more were seriously injured. Two were shot dead at about midnight in a second attack by gunmen; a third student, found dead a few blocks away, had the skin peeled from his face and his eyes gouged out.

A teenage footballer and the driver of the bus he was travelling in with his team were killed in a separate attack, apparently because they had been mistaken for the students. The sixth victim, a woman in a taxi, was reportedly killed in the crossfire.

Abarca and Pineda went underground four days after the events, at the same time as evidence was emerging of the couple’s close links to the Guerreros Unidos gang. Municipal police and drug gang members reportedly set up checkpoints at the entrance to the city, from which several people allegedly disappeared after being stopped.

Abarca, by then stripped of his office, and his wife were arrested by federal police in Mexico City on 4 November. The former mayor was subsequently sent to a maximum security jail where he faces charges of organised crime, kidnapping and murder. Pineda, who was not immediately charged, has been remanded in custody for 40 days while investigations continue.

The accusation of murder, related to the six people who died during the initial attacks against the students, was announced on Thursday by the authorities in Guerrero state, where Iguala and the student college are located.

The six deaths in the initial attack have been somewhat forgotten amid the political crisis over the federal government’s failure to locate the 43 missing students, which has prompted continuous national and international demonstrations.

The protests have intensified in the past week after the government announced that it had evidence that a few hours after the initial attack dozens of young people were killed in a rubbish tip about an hour’s drive from Iguala. The attorney general, Jesús Murillo Karam, said the bodies were reduced to ashes and bone fragments after being burned for about 15 hours on a huge funeral pyre, with the remains collected in plastic bags and dumped in a nearby river. The fragments have been sent to a specialist laboratory in Austria for identification.