Police shot a man dead in order to rescue a four-year-old girl who had been held hostage at knife point for nearly seven hours in a Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) outlet in Shanghai.

A middle-aged man seized the girl at around 3 p.m. on Wednesday inside the fast-food outlet located on the first floor of a shopping mall on Yangliuqing Road in Putuo District.

Police were forced to shoot the man at 9:40 p.m. when he tried to injure the girl with a knife, local police said, adding that the man's mood had worsened during the long negotiation process.

The girl was unharmed in the rescue operation, police said, and has been reunited with her mother who was in the restaurant when her daughter was seized. The mother was later evacuated by police.

Police are still investigating the identity of the man and his motive for holding the girl hostage.

Editor: Wing