Hundreds of people had started gathering near the junction of Argyle Street and Sai Yeung Choi South Street at around 11pm on Friday and chanted "open roads" and "I want genuine universal suffrage".

Police reinforcements, armed with helmets, shields and batons, quickly came and cordoned off the area. Through loudspeakers, officers appealed to the crowd to disperse or else face arrest.

But the appeals were ignored and some people were seen throwing objects like eggs and plastic bottles at the police. One officer was hit by an egg. Red flags were raised to tell protesters not to charge at police or they would use force.

Shortly afterwards, officers charged at the crowd and a woman claimed police kept hitting protesters even though they had moved backwards. Several arrests were made.

Protesters then ran away in different directions towards surrounding streets, knocking down rubbish bins on the roads in a bid to slow down traffic.

Police took to the streets of Mong Kok on Friday night in a show of force to prevent crowds of protesters from gathering in the vicinity to reoccupy roads as night fell.

Protester Mr Chan, 24, said it was the government who forced them to the streets. "I don't care if it is meaningful, it is the government who created the problem," he said.

Another protester, Ms Ng, said protesters' action would cause a nuisance to nearby residents, but that was the price to pay for clearing the Mong Kok Occupy camp on Wednesday.

WATCH: Arrests, batons, dogs: police aim to prevent protesters from reoccupying Mong Kok

"I want to express my dissatisfaction over the government's and police's handling over political reform and clearance of the site. If there wasn't a clearance, we wouldn't have to run around," she said.

In the junction of Dundas Street and Waterloo Road near Kwong Wah Hospital, objects like glasses and a can were dropped from height when protesters moved to the area, but no one were hurt.

Multiple clashes between pro-democracy protesters and police officers took place over the previous two nights, prompting police to forcibly push crowds back onto the pavement following the clearance of the Occupy camp.

Police formed a cordon along a section of Sai Yeung Choi South Street as hundreds of protesters gathered on both sides of pavement, chanting “We want genuine universal suffrage” and “We want shopping” – a reference to Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying’s call for Hongkongers to revitalise the area by spending money there.

Protesters from time to time also flashed the three-fingered salute from the movie that symbolised resistance to totalitarian rule.

At the junction of Soy Street and Sai Yeung Choi South Street, a large crowd repeatedly crossed the road in an attempt to slow down traffic, despite appeals from police to keep the road clear.

“Please cooperate and move back to the pavement and do not block the road,” a policewoman said through a loudhailer before her voice was drowned out by jeering from the crowd.

At 8.45pm, some 100 protesters moved away from Sai Yeung Choi South Street to Argyle Street along Nathan Road – prompting the police to set up a cordon. A stand-off ensued at the junction of Nathan Road and Argyle Street for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, a young Hong Kong Catholic who once took a selfie with Pope Francis was confirmed as being one of the more than 100 people arrested at the pro-democracy protest site in Mong Kok earlier this week, the Catholic Herald reported on Friday.

The report said Giovanni Pang, who met the pontiff when he visited South Korea in August, was arrested on Tuesday night when he went to the protest site to help students as bailiffs removed barriers.

His friend Henry Chan, a radio DJ, wrote to Pope Francis on Facebook after Pang was arrested. According to the London-based Catholic newspaper, the Hong Kong diocese sent a representative to the police station to check on Pang’s situation.

When they met in South Korea, Pope Francis avoided answering the teenager’s question about the “control and oppression” of Catholics in China. 

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi later said the pope had decided to avoid political topics during the pastoral event.

With additional reporting from Jeffie Lam