Police retreat from PolyU, lift cordon

HONG KONG - Hong Kong police announced the cordon around the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) had been lifted after officers finished their investigation and removed dangerous items from the campus.

Police confirmed the arrangement in a post on its official social media account at around 1 pm.

The campus has been handed over to the university’s management, police said.

Police have seized in total 3,989 gasoline bombs, 1,339 items of explosives, 601 bottles of corrosive liquids and 573 items of weapons in the campus, police said in the post.

During a press briefing at 10 am, a police representative said police had seized another batch of offensive weapons during Friday's operation. He added that officers did not encounter any protesters on the campus.

Stressing that, police have been adopting all along a peaceful and flexible approach in handling the standoff at the PolyU, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Operations) Chow Yat-ming told reporters that the force was grateful that the crisis could be resolved in a peaceful manner.

He said that police will not tolerate any kind of violence or illegal activities.

"We will stringently follow up the investigation in a professional and impartial manner," he said.

PolyU was sealed off by police since the night of Nov 17, after pitched battles had broken out between protesters and police officers in the vicinity of the campus.

In press briefing Thursday, police said that after more than 10 days of occupation by radicals, the campus has been badly and extensively damaged. A large number of petrol bombs, gas cylinders and corrosives left exposed under sunlight for a long time posed a serious threat to all personnel at the site, police said.