Bank robbery drill causes panic

Just one day after the violent murderer and bank robber Zhou Kehua was shot dead, a fake robbery that took place in front of a bank branch in the eastern city of Wuxi caused widespread panic after local police failed to notify the public or the bank about the drill in advance, Oriental Morning Post reported Thursday.

The robbery was first reported on a micro-blog post at 4pm Wednesday, which said two men robbed a bank customer of 100,000 yuan ($15,700), hijacked a black Buick and fled. The post gave a vivid description of the two robbers' facial features as well as the plate number of the Buick, and said one of the robbers wielded a kitchen knife.

As the news went viral on the Internet, many micro bloggers were appalled by the audacity of the robbers in the wake of the sensational death of Zhou, even though some speculated that it might be a drill.

Various speculations didn't stop until after the drill, when the city police department published a statement, explaining the mock robbery was intended to examine and improve the local police's capacity to deal with emergencies. The robbers were captured, and the drill was deemed a success.