Suspects detained after Shanghai Metro begging incident

Metro police said yesterday that they have detained an unspecified number of people in connection with an incident last Friday at Shanghai's Zhongtan Road station in which a woman claimed to have been threatened.

The woman, surnamed Wang, said she was approached by two men after filing a report with Metro police about a beggar she'd seen working on a Line 4 train.

Wang said she saw the woman and a child singing and begging on the train at 10:30pm and told them to stop. The beggar refused, Xinmin.cn reported.

When the train reached Zhongtan Road, Wang exited the carriage, as did the beggar and her child.

Wang grabbed the woman and alerted Metro police.

In a bid to turn the tables, the unnamed beggar told police that Wang was trying to rob her, the report said.

After being questioned at the station police office, Wang was approached by a man who appeared menacing. A police officer intervened and the man walked away, it said.

When Wang returned to the subway platform she was approached by two other men. They told her to delete the photos she had taken of the beggar from her phone, the report said.

As the police officers had by this time disappeared, Wang went to the station's service center for help.

A member of the Metro staff distracted the two men so that Wang could make good her escape, the report said. As well as the people held yesterday, police said they detained 12 beggars on Tuesday.