A 22-year-old Hong Kong university student who suffered a severe head injury after falling in a parking garage close to the scene of protests has died on Friday morning, hospital authorities confirmed.
Chow Tsz-lok, a computer sciences student at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), fell from the third floor to the second floor of a parking garage in the residential area of Tseung Kwan O in the early hours of November 4, CNN reported.
The Hong Kong Hospital Authority confirmed that Chow had died at 8:09 a.m. (local time) today, a development that could further inflame tensions in the semi-autonomous city.
Chief Executive of the region, Carrie Lam, on Tuesday expressed grief over citizens being seriously injured as a result of the unrest in the city, saying, "I express deep sympathies to the university student and those who got injured in the protests."
Chow had been in a coma and on life support after arriving at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kowloon on Monday morning.
Chow's death has prompted an outpouring of anger from anti-government protest groups, who claim that police actions on the night of the accident resulted in paramedics being temporarily unable to access Chow.
However, the city Police have strenuously denied responsibility for his death and maintained that at no point did police obstruct ambulance or fire services from assisting Chow. A police statement released on November 5 described the allegations as "certainly false."
Protests in the city began since June with peaceful marches against a now-aborted bill that would have allowed criminal extraditions to mainland China.
Since then, the demonstrations have spiralled into a broader, anti-government, pro-democracy movement, which has at times sparked violent clashes between police and protesters, as well as protesters and members of the public. More than 1,500 people have been treated in hospital for protest-related injuries and more than 3,300 people have been arrested since the start of June.
( With inputs from ANI )