Polytechnic University siege: Hong Kong police to enter campus to remove weapons, dangerous substances and gather evidence of vandalism
- After search teams fail to find protesters, university says it has done all it could to get holdouts to leave
- Police say they must act because of severe damage, weapons and hazardous materials on campus
Hong Kong police are preparing to enter Polytechnic University on Thursday morning to clear hazardous chemicals and weapons and gather evidence of vandalism after violent protests resulted in a lockdown of the campus since November 17.
The force reached an agreement with the university management on Wednesday afternoon for its operation to proceed.
A team comprising bomb disposal officers, detectives, police negotiators, firefighters, paramedics, social workers and clinical psychologists will be sent in, Yau Tsim district commander, Chief Superintendent Ho Yun-sing, said after meeting PolyU leaders on Wednesday.
“Our main goal is to restore the safety of the campus and reopen it as soon as possible,” he said.
After the university appealed on Monday for an end to the blockade, police assembled a “safety team” to enter the campus in Hung Hom and persuade the remaining protesters to leave.
But the force held back from moving in after PolyU preferred to send in its own search teams to look for the last remaining protesters, with estimates that there were dozens still there.