The announcement came as university leaders called for police to lift their 10-day siege given the sprawling facility appeared to be deserted
The university asks the police to retreat so that a cleanup operation can begin. Pic/AFP
Hong Kong: The police plan to send officers on Thursday morning into the ransacked remains of a university campus where authorities faced off for days with barricaded pro-democracy protesters, an official said Wednesday.
The announcement came as university leaders called for police to lift their 10-day siege given the sprawling facility appeared to be deserted. Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) was the epicentre of the territory's increasingly violent protest movement when clashes broke out on November 17 between police and protesters armed with bows and arrows as well as Molotov cocktails.
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Police chief superintendent Ricky Ho said "safety teams" comprised of police, fire fighters, paramedics and university staff would enter the campus on Thursday morning to look for any dangerous materials. "Our safety team, together with some crime officers, will enter the school tomorrow morning," he told reporters on Wednesday.
"Our ultimate goal is to restore the safety of the campus, and to reopen the campus as soon as possible," Ricky Ho said hours after PolyU released a statement stating, "The University suggests that the police need not to conduct a... search, but rather remove the cordon around our campus immediately." AFP journalists at the site on Wednesday found a battleground covered in debris, barricades and the shattered bottles of Molotov cocktails.
10
No. of days univ has been under siege
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