Discovery of bombs, gun sparks fears
HK chief executive expresses concern as two homemade explosive devices are seized, defused on campus
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor expressed her deep concerns that violence has spread to the city’s schools, posing a huge safety threat, after two remotecontrolled fully functional homemade explosive devices were found and defused at a secondary-school campus on Dec 9.
Speaking to the media before a weekly Executive Council meeting, Lam said on Dec 10 that the broad participation of students in months of unrest has been very alarming and worrying as students arrested over the past six months came from more than 300 schools.
On Dec 9, six students and a teacher were arrested in Sheung Shui, in the city’s New Territories, on suspicion of plotting to block roads with barricades, according to police.
Lam asked Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung to seriously follow up on cases involving teachers currently under arrest. She also called on schools to continue to prevent students from engaging in unlawful activities and to keep them away from violence.
Of the 6,022 people arrested since June, 40 percent were students, police said on Dec 9.
The city’s Education Bureau last month required local schools to discipline those students who took part in unlawful activities, such as disrupting subway trains and blocking major roads, leading to a weeklong suspension of classes at primary and secondary schools.
This is the first time homemade bombs were found at a secondary school since the extradition bill incident started in June. The remotecontrolled bombs, found on the campus of Wah Yan College, a secondary school in Wan Chai, Hong Kong Island, were subsequently defused by the Hong Kong police on the evening of Dec 9.
“Both of these devices have only one function, to kill and to maim people, given the quantities of the explosives and fragmentation material,” Alick McWhirter, a specialist superintendent (bomb disposal) in the Hong Kong Police Explosive Ordnance Disposal Bureau, said at a media briefing on Dec 9.
The bombs contained a total of about 10 kilograms of high explosives and fragmentation material, according to McWhirter. The radio-controlled improvised explosive devices were “fully functional and ready to be used,” he said, adding that the bombs’ range was between 50 and 100 meters.
Li Kwai-wah, senior superintendent with the Hong Kong Police Organized Crime and Triad Bureau, told the media that making or possessing explosives is a serious crime punishable by up to 14 years of imprisonment.
Meanwhile, on Dec 8, Hong Kong police seized a semiautomatic pistol, five magazines loaded with 105 rounds of ammunition and various other offensive weapons that were believed to be part of an arsenal that radical protesters planned to use in an anti-government rally later in the day.
Li said at a news briefing that it was the first gun seized by police since antigovernment protests stemming from the now-withdrawn extradition law amendment bill erupted in June.
On Dec 8, police swooped on 11 locations across the city where they also seized dozens of daggers, sabers, batons, pepper spray and firecrackers. Eight men and three women between the ages of 20 and 63 were arrested during the raids.
Police said some of those arrested were part of a “radical group” connected with a gasoline bomb attack at a police station in the Mong Kok area on Oct 20.
An investigation on the source of the weapons is underway, Li said, adding that the 9 mm Glock pistol found in North Point was in good condition.
The arrestees, some of them students, were taken in on suspicion of possession of arms or ammunition without a license, possession of offensive weapons and dangerous items, and unlawful assembly, police said.