Hong Kong protests: riot squads surround university campus occupied by radicals after day of fierce clashes, shooting of officer with arrow and live round fired at car trying to ram police line
- Normally serene neighbourhood around the Polytechnic University campus on Austin Road turned into a war zone
- Huge fire breaks out on strategic footbridge while police armoured vehicle sent to take nearby flyover attacked by mob with petrol bombs
Police laid siege to Hong Kong Polytechnic University on Sunday night, warning people to leave or face action for “taking part in a riot”.
That came after an extremely violent day that saw the two sides battling each other around the strategically located campus in Kowloon.
At 10pm, a white Ford sedan without licence plates tried to ram a group of police officers just outside the Gun Club Hill barracks on Austin Road. An officer fired one live round at the vehicle and another one shot it with a rubber bullet. The car stopped and then took off towards Tsim Sha Tsui, police said.
The normally serene neighbourhood around the campus on Austin Road turned into a war zone, with masked radicals occupying PolyU waging pitched battles against riot police.
A police source said dozens of people had been arrested at the campus, and hundreds of others were estimated to be inside. Mass arrests were expected.
Police said that most of the dangerous materials they had seized from arrested radicals over the past few days were stolen from PolyU laboratories.
