A man who took a boy hostage was shot dead by police in southwest China's Guizhou Province early Sunday morning, Xinhua reported.
The man, who took a 10-year-old boy hostage in Qingzhen District in Guiyang City at midnight, asked for a ransome of 150,000 yuan (21,900 U.S. dollars), local police said.
Police shot dead the hostage taker, who claimed to have explosives, at at 5:00 a.m. after "repeated persuasion failed" and successfully rescued the boy.
Police said they had defused the explosives and were working to identify the hostage taker.