Rioters occupying the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) were launching indiscriminate attacks with various lethal weapons, targeting not only policemen but also civilians, the Hong Kong police said on Monday.

Rioting occurred over the weekend at various locations around the PolyU campus in Kowloon, with rioters committing vandalism and arson extensively and hurling petrol bombs at the police intensively, Cheuk Hau-yip, Hong Kong police regional commander of Kowloon West, told a press briefing on Monday.

After being occupied by the rioters for a week, the PolyU campus has been turned into a "weapon factory" to manufacture a large number of petrol bombs and make bombs from compressed gas, Cheuk said.

Photos and videos displayed at the briefing showed that the weapons used by the rioters have upgraded from bricks and miscellaneous objects to lethal ones such as gas canisters with nails attached to the surface, petrol bombs, bows and arrows, and corrosive liquids.

The rioters did not distinguish between the police and civilians when they were using these weapons, Cheuk said, adding that they threw hard objects and petrol bombs and used bows and arrows to intimidate civilians who volunteered to clear the road barricades built by the rioters.

A police media liaison officer was hit in his calf by an arrow shot by the rioters on Sunday, Chief Superintendent of Police Public Relations Branch Kwok Ka-chuen said, adding that the officer was among the journalists and was not wearing protective gear.

"This is an attempted murder, and the arrow could have hit the journalists at the scene," Kwok said.

The rioters were "almost out of control" and launched attacks against civilians in different parts of Hong Kong, including throwing petrol bombs from height and using so-called "lynching" against those who volunteered to clear the road barricades and restore order, Kwok said.

According to Kwok, three universities have reported to the police that they found large numbers of petrol bombs stored on their campuses and large quantities of flammable and explosive chemicals in their laboratories were stolen by the rioters.

Leung Wai-lok, acting deputy chief fire officer of the Fire Services Department, said at the briefing that the stolen dangerous chemicals could cause grave damage to the users and their targets, blasting the rioters for "totally disregarding people's lives."

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