The Hong Kong Immigration Department yesterday said it has received reports that a man went missing on a cross-border mega bridge to the gambling hub of Macau that hosts a new Chinese mainland police checkpoint.
The disappearance first emerged on Saturday when the man’s son told local media his father had texted to say he was being detained while passing through an artificial island where Chinese police are stationed on his way to the semi-autonomous city of Macau.
The man was traveling by bus on Friday afternoon along the bridge-and-tunnel network linking Hong Kong, Macau and Zhuhai, his son said.
“His last message said: ‘I got arrested,’” the son told Cable News, speaking anonymously.
The artificial island in the middle of the Pearl River Delta lies in Chinese mainland waters.
It does not normally host a checkpoint, but mainland police set one up there last week with X-ray machines and facial-recognition checks ahead of an upcoming visit to Macau by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
The department said it had “received a request for help” regarding a resident “who was suspected to have gone missing ... when traveling to Macau via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge.”
It was reaching out to the territory’s trade office in the China’s Guangdong Province, which borders Macau, a department spokesman said.
Security is being ramped up in Macau ahead of Xi’s visit on Friday to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its handover from Portugal to China.
Last week, Guangdong’s public security department said it was setting up a checkpoint on the artificial island to “create a favorable social environment” for the anniversary celebrations.
The Hong Kong Security Bureau declined to comment on whether it was aware of the new checkpoint.
Reporters passed the checkpoint on Wednesday last week.
It was staffed with dozens of heavily armed SWAT officers, and bus passengers had their luggage, faces and identity documents screened.
Meanwhile, flashmob protests and vandalism broke out in multiple locations in Hong Kong, prompting riot police to use pepper spray and make arrests in at least two shopping centers as members of the public heckled the officers.
The skirmishes are the first in three weeks.
Reporters in Sha Tin District saw a secondary-school girl and a 16-year-old boy arrested at a mall, the pair shouting out their details as officers led them away.
Earlier in the afternoon an elderly woman was knocked over in the same mall after a fight broke out when a shopper tried to stop protesters from spraying graffiti.
Activists also trashed restaurants run by Maxim’s Caterers Ltd (美心食品), a firm owned by a tycoon who has become a frequent target because his daughter has criticized the pro-democracy movement.
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