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Business as usual for robbed Haidian bank

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-28 07:46
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The bank that was robbed on Saturday in Haidian District resumed business yesterday, with the 32-year-old suspect surnamed Han in police custody, according to local Chinese media.

The bank is a branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) located on the second floor of a building in Lingnan Road near the Hangtian Bridge.

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By yesterday morning, the security fence allegedly kicked down by the suspect had already been fixed, with armed guards posted at the front gate, the Mirror Evening News reported.

According to a witness surnamed Zhou, a man wearing a black veil shouted: "Give me the money, I am robbing!" at about 2:30 pm on Saturday, holding a pregnant woman by the neck.

People standing by thought he was just making a joke with his girlfriend, until the man revealed several detonators around his waist, the Beijing News reported.

The staff rang the emergency alarm right away and all the clients except for the abducted woman ran down the stairs to escape.

Then the security fence at the first floor was locked by a staff.

"All of this happened in less than 2 minutes," Zhou recalled.

After the man put 70,000 yuan cash from the bank into his blue backpack, he kicked down the security fence.

But it was already too late for him to escape because three automobile mechanics working next door heard the scream "robbery" and began to chase after him with several security guards from the bank.

"At first I thought people are kidding," said Zhu, a mechanic who joined the chase, "then we realized it was real when we saw the detonators."

When the man ran near a nearby elementary school, someone kicked him down. Later it turned out that the explosives were fake.

The money was returned to the bank and the abducted woman was uninjured.