Police locate suspect in Harbour City bomb hoax Inside
The Hong Kong police on Wednesday tracked down the woman suspected of using a fake device to create Tuesday’s bomb terror in Tsim Sha Tsui, according to a source.
The 18-year-old, believed to be suffering from mental illness, is receiving treatment at a local hospital. The source said the police’s West Kowloon Regional Crime Unit will arrest her for further investigation after she regains full consciousness.
The police ruled out any links to terrorism.
The woman was believed to be the one who dropped a bomb-shaped object near the waterfront outside a restaurant at the Harbour City mall — one of the city’s busiest shopping centers — about 2:30 pm, which caused the evacuation of 600 people in the vicinity.
After an operation by the police’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal Bureau, the object turned out to have been made using an alarm clock allegedly stolen from a toy shop at the shopping center, police said.
The source said the woman had been sent to hospital after she returned home on Tuesday and was believed to be a mentally challenged or mentally incapacitated person.
This was the second time this year that a mentally challenged person caused a public scare. In February, a man set off a firebomb, burning himself on a crowded MTR train during Hong Kong’s evening rush hour, injuring at least 18 people and spreading chaos among passengers.
Surveillance cameras at Harbour City showed a woman dressed in black dropping bomb-like object near the entrance to the cruise terminal.
According to police, the object comprised seven bundled paper tubes with an alarm clock connected. However, the police confirmed that there were no explosives inside.
A bomb hoax is a serious offense in Hong Kong which carries a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment and a HK$150,000 fine.
Hong Kong has strengthened precautions against potential terrorist threats following the suicide bombing at Manchester in the United Kingdom last week. Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said the police force and other relevant government departments will stay on high alert to protect Hong Kong people’s lives and property.
Earlier this month, the Hong Kong police received intelligence that extremists inspired by the ISIS terrorist group may have sneaked into Hong Kong for a lone-wolf style of attack in the city.
Currently, the government maintains the city’s terrorism threat level at “moderate” as there was no specific intelligence indicating an imminent attack or Hong Kong being targeted, according to police.
Hong Kong society was treated to a very disturbing incident on Tuesday in the form of several paper tubes that looked like sticks of explosive connected by colored wires to a device resembling an electronic timer. The fake bomb was inside a bag left by a woman dressed in black outside a restaurant at the Star Ferry entrance of Harbour City in Tsim Sha Tsui, where numerous local people and visitors come and go every day. The case is still under police investigation but the suspect has been identified and found to be a mental patient. While the 18-year-old girl’s mental condition may have ruled out the possibility of any terrorist design, it offers us no reason not to be on high alert against real attempts to spread fear while the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region prepares to celebrate its 20th anniversary on July 1.
Hong Kong is widely known as one of the safest cities of its kind in the world, which says a lot about the effectiveness of its rule of law and particularly the law-enforcement authorities. That said, the fake bomb scare on Tuesday was not the first of its kind in recent history. For example, an incendiary device placed by radical activists in a garbage bin outside the Legislative Council Complex in 2014 actually went off but did not cause any casualty; and several members of a separatist group were apprehended by police for making and testing crude explosive devices in an abandoned indus- trial building, also in 2014.
Given the setbacks the separatists and other radical groups have suffered in the past few years one simply cannot rule out the possibility that some of them might feel the urge to spread fear among members of the public as well as the SAR government and visitors from the mainland amid festive activities. That is why the police have held multiple exercises this year to make sure the anti-terrorist and antiriot units are in their best shape to thwart any attempt to strike fear among visitors as well as Hong Kong residents amid festive activities.
There is no denying pressure on the Hong Kong Police Force has increased significantly in recent years to step up security measures — especially around government facilities — since the illegal “Occupy Central” movement ended in fall 2014. The Mong Kok riot on the night of the Chinese New Year Day last year was a rude awakening for those who thought political dissent could not be worse than “Occupy Central”, as scores of angry men and women — many of them members of separatist groups — showed the world on TV how violent they can be if they want to. The Mong Kok riot was widely regarded as another criminal attempt to intimidate the Hong Kong public and the government with full-on violence. Thus the police should be fully prepared to deal with potential violent actions, even terrorist attacks, during the coming anniversary celebrations.