Man holds toddler hostage in Shanghai KFC

A Chinese man with a knife took a three-year-old girl hostage at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in western Shanghai today, state media reported.

More than 100 police converged on the fast food restaurant in the Putuo district after the man grabbed the toddler at around at 3pm (8am Irish time), the state-run Eastday.com website reported.

Officers were trying to negotiate the girl’s release, it said.

The child’s mother was in the restaurant when the girl was taken hostage but was later evacuated by police, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Xinhua reported that the man was in his 50s. The reports did not say whether the man had made any demands.