Hong Kong
(Picture: PA Archive)Nine people including secondary school pupils have been arrested in Hong Kong after they were accused of planning to plant bombs across the city.
Police said the group were attempting to make the explosive triacetone triperoxide, also known as TATP, in a homemade laboratory in a hostel.
Unlike most other explosives, TATP can even explode underwater. It has also been used in terrorist attacks worldwide.
Six of the nine people arrested were secondary school students. Police say they had planned to put explosives inside bins on the street “to maximise damage caused to the society.”
They then planned to leave the city “for good” after their plan was complete.
Authorities say they seized apparatus and raw materials used to make the TATP and a “trace amount” of the explosive.
They also found operating manuals and about 80,000 Hong Kong dollars in cash before freezing a further 600,000 Hong kong dollars in assets, which they believe may be linked to the plot.
Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam said on Tuesday that people should not be wrongly influenced by the idea that there is only “government tyranny.”
She added: “They should not be influenced into thinking that they can find excuses to inflict violence.”
