The two men, who were reported as speaking Italian, posed as policemen to gain entry to the home of Pankaj Maldar, an Indian who heads the Antwerp diamond traders Karp Impex. After resisting for hours, he was forced to go to his office while the gang stood guard over his family – a so-called “tiger kidnapping”. The robbery took place on Friday, 5 March, but only became known after news leaked out on the website of The Times of India.

But Kortrijk was already busy with plans for a new mall to give the shopping district a much-needed boost. In 2007, construction started on a project that would change the city's commercial heart completely. Expected to make the area vibrant once again and bring people back to the centre of Kortrijk, it opens on Thursday, 11 March, with the name K in Kortrijk.

At 34,000 square meters, K in Kortrijk is bigger than the floor space of all the existing shops in the commercial centre put together. The planning and construction of this shopping giant took seven years.