Dissident republicans are suspected of being behind Monday’s West Belfast tiger kidnapping that resulted in £50,000 being stolen from the Next store in Belfast city centre.

A family was held captive after two masked men, one armed with a handgun, entered their Lagmore Dale home on Sunday evening.

They demanded that three children – one aged 15 and twins aged eight – be put into their bedrooms. The parents were held in another part of the house. At 6.45am on Monday morning they ordered the father to go to the Next store in the city centre, where he is a manager, and take away a sum of cash, thought to be around £50,000.

The mother, father and three children were then freed.

This was the fourth tiger kidnapping to occur in West Belfast in the past month.

On December 14, an armed gang took hostage the family of a Marks and Spencer manager from Hannahstown and ordered him to hand over £90,000 from the Lisburn store. The man’s wife and their two children, still in their nightclothes, were held in a blue van at Boucher Road while the money hand-over was taking place. 

A PSNI spokesman refused to rule out dissident republican involvement.

He said: “The investigation is at an early stage. At this point we require information from the public.”