A YOUNG man armed with two hand grenades surrendered to police after an eight-hour siege in a supermarket in Changsha, the capital of Central China's Hunan Province, last Tuesday afternoon.

　　According to Eastday.com, hundreds of customers shopping in the supermarket were evacuated by security guards at 9:30am when the siege began.

　　One of the shoppers, surnamed Wang, said he had been told at first a man in the supermarket was suspected as a SARS patient.

　　But a saleswoman working in the supermarket said the man, who was carrying a black bag, had been caught stealing.

　　Two security guards had taken the man, in his twenties, to a room for questioning when he suddenly took two grenades from the bag.

　　He barricaded himself in the windowless room and held the guards hostage.

　　Armed police sealed off the building and the surrounding roads. Fire-fighting vehicles and ambulances were called and took station outside the building.

　　Over the next three hours, squads of military police armed with submachine guns and bullet-proof vests and helmets arrived outside the supermarket.

　　Provincial leaders also rushed to the spot and set up a command centre in a nearby hotel.

　　Nearly four hours after the siege began, city and provincial leaders entered the supermarket and began to negotiate with the man using mobile phones.

　　At 2:00pm, after the man had said he was from Leiyang County, the Changsha police office contacted the Leiyang police and asked them to find the man's parents and bring them to the scene of the siege.

　　At 4:45pm the man's parents arrived at the supermarket and joined the negotiations with their son.

　　About 30 minutes later the young man surrendered to police.

　　The two hostages were released uninjured.

　　The case is under further investigation. (Star News)