Rice-stealing rat shamed publicly by shop owner

A shop owner has come up with a bizarre way of 'punishing' thieving rodents - by 'shaming' them with tiny signs declaring their crimes. Photographs of live rats tied up with notes tied around their necks appeared on China's Twitter-like micro-blogging site Weibo. The pictures are thought to have been taken in Heyuan city in south eastern China's Guangdong Province. One shows a rat tied up with a note, written in Chinese, that reads simply: 'I dare not do it again!' And another, with the rodent tied by each of its limbs in the same way, with a lengthier message that reads: 'Huh, is this the best you could do? Even if you beat me to death, I would not admit that the rice at your home had been stolen by me.'
The pictures, uploaded by a Weibo user, were captioned: "A friend of mine found a small rat in the warehouse of a convenience store.

"After [it] was arrested, it was shamed with a poster. Poor rat! How will it celebrate the Lunar New Year?"
They later told MailOnline that the rat was caught and strung up by staff at a convenience shop and that they were surprised at the huge reaction to the photographs online. While his name has not been revealed, he added: "Some people pitied the rat, some people hated the rat, and some people found it to be funny. "I pity the rat. It's just a small animal. It would almost certainly die being treated like this."
Lai Tiancai, the owner of the shop, defended the actions taken by staff, saying it was 'just a rat'.