An Egyptian watch merchant was arrested over deliberately smashing more than 200 urns and religious idols across multiple locations since April this year.
The arrestee, a 38-year-old male, drove his car to various locations, including graveyards and temples, damaging over 210 urns and at least six religious idols.
Officers believed the arrestee conducted the crime out of religious intention.
Police officers received 18 reports from April involving 15 places in New Territories that found incidents of urns being damaged, and three temples in Sha Tin, Kwai Chung, and Shau Kei Man saw their idols broken.
The damaged urns belong to different family clans, and all owners of the urns and temple claimed no other property loss, which led to police ruling out the possibility that it involved personal conflicts.
After a deep investigation, officers targeted a suspicious BMW hovering near the scenes and mastered the car owner's information.
Officers followed the car early Sunday and arrived at a temple in Shau Kei Wan. The officers subdued the suspect on the spot before he tried to break another religious idol.
"We seized tools suspected to be used to commit the crime in the arrestee's car," said Senior In Inspector Abdul Faisal of Police's Crime New Territories North Headquarters.
He was also found to be a watch merchant from Egypt, holding a permanent Hong Kong identity card, with his wife being a Hongkonger.
