YINCHUAN - A man was robbed and shot dead outside a bank in Ningxia Hui autonomous region on Thursday morning in a rare armed robbery in China, local police said.

The robbery happened around 10 a.m. outside a branch of China Construction Bank in the Jinfeng district of Yinchuan, capital of Ningxia, according to the Public Security Bureau of Yinchuan.

Witnesses said they heard a gun shot and later found the body of a man outside the bank, with his bag missing. The criminal, whose identity remains unknown, had escaped the site, the bureau told Xinhua.

The regional authorities have formed a special team to probe into the case.

Chinese laws ban the ownership of firearms, and gun crimes, though rare, usually captivate much public attention in China. In January, a man was robbed and shot dead in front of a bank in Nanjing, prompting a large-scale manhunt for the alleged serial killer behind the crime.