Hong Kong police said they arrested nine people for allegedly plotting to set off bombs as political frictions escalate in the city under China's sweeping security law, reports say.
Six secondary students were among those arrested on suspicion of engaging in terrorist activities, the latest to be targeted in the city where China is tightening its grip, authorities said.
China enforced a harsh new security law on the former British colony last year.
Authorities also froze bank funds of about HK$600,000 ($77,237.97) including cash that they say may be linked to the plot.
Police said the group was trying to make an improvised explosive containing triacetone triperoxide (TATP) in a makeshift laboratory in a hostel, Global Time reported.
The group belongs to a secessionist organization called "Returning Valiant," the report said.
TATP has been used in terrorist attacks around the world. Since 2019, Hong Kong police have arrested multiple people accused of plotting bomb attacks and for making TATP.
"They had a good division of labor among those arrested. Some of them provided money. Some are the scientists - the ones who made the TATP in the room," Senior Supt. Steve Li said in quotes by Business World.
The nine arrested were five men and four women aged 15 and 39, Hong Kong Police National Security Department Senior Supt. Li Kwai-wah said.
"They should not be wrongly influenced by the idea that...breaking the law is in order, if you're trying to achieve a certain cause," The Associated Press quoted Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam as saying.
In December 2019, Hong Kong's police ordnance team defused two bombs at a local Catholic school.
A remote-controlled improvised explosive device was also detonated near a police vehicle in the same year, when the anti-government demonstrations were continuing.
