New Delhi: A hostage situation was averted in an Apple store in central Amsterdam on Tuesday after the armed man who took several people hostage was overpowered in a siege that lasted for several hours. The last of the hostages had been freed, as per the AFP report.
In order to control the situation, the police had deployed several special units after getting a tip-off on armed robbery and it soon changed into a hostage situation.
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The gunman was "lying on the street and a robot was examining him for explosives" in front of the store in Leidseplein in the heart of the Dutch city, AFP reported.
The last hostage held in the store was safe, the police added. "Since the start of the hostage-taking ... several people have managed to leave the store," the authorities told news agency AFP.
They were monitoring images circulating on social media which would eventually be used in an investigation, they added.
Tim Wagemakers, an independent journalist who was in a nearby building, tweeted about the area surrounded by the police, adding that locals had been asked to remain inside and stay away from their windows.
In fact, the building in which the journalist was also evacuated during the hostage-taking.
Images on social media showed an assailant holding a man at gunpoint, local media reported. Several witnesses heard gunshots inside the Apple Store, according to the AT5 outlet.
In 2021, the Netherlands' biggest city witnessed cases of four armed robberies of mobile phone stores forcing some of the targetted stores to remove most of their phone supplies. However, none of the robberies had been in the city center.
In 2015 a man with a gun broke into a TV studio demanding screen time. No one was injured and the man was later convicted of hostage-taking, according to Reuters.