Hong Kong protests: flash-mob ‘shopping tours’, trashed train stations and shops, tear gas and water cannons as city enters sixth month of anti-government unrest

Radical protesters played a cat-and-mouse game with police on Sunday as they staged flash-mob “shopping tours”, blocked roads and trashed train stations and mainland-linked shops amid festering anger over the mysterious death of a student.

As calls spread online for demonstrators to go on mall marches, scuffles broke out between protesters and police by mid-afternoon in at least seven districts. Large shopping centres in these neighbourhoods were soon swept up in a frenzy of confrontations and clashes as shoppers tried to dodge the chaos or, in some cases, joined in to hurl abuse at riot police.

While calm returned to most of the districts by early evening, groups of radicals in Mong Kok obstructed traffic with barricades and started throwing bricks and other projectiles at police, leaving the roads studded with concrete blocks. A water cannon was deployed to disperse the crowd there, and about 15 rounds of tear gas were fired in Tsuen Wan throughout the evening as tensions escalated.

Sunday’s mayhem, after Saturday’s peaceful vigil in memory of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology student Chow Tsz-lok, came just two weeks before district council elections, which many fear could be postponed if the violence persists.

At night, protesters gathered outside the car park in Tseung Kwan O where Chow fell and sustained a severe brain injury. They began a stand-off with police, pointing laser beams at the officers.

The violent core first began their antics at Sha Tin railway station in the early afternoon, vandalising turnstiles and smashing glass doors, before moving on to damage a Maxim’s cafe and Maxim’s Palace restaurant, overturning tables and chairs and breaking china.