A Muslim employee at a Paris kosher market has been hailed as a hero for hiding a group of shoppers during a hostage situation on January 9.

Lassana Bathily, 24, who is originally from Mali, risked his life to save the 15 shoppers on Friday. He reportedly ran to a basement walk-in freezer while the shoppers tailed behind him including one that had a two-year-old baby.

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According to reports, a man identified as Amedy Coulibaly threatened to kill them and Bathily quickly thought of a way to keep the shoppers be unharmed. He said that he switched the freezer off and turned off the lights as he calmed down the panicked shoppers.

"Several came in with me. I turned off the light and the fridge. When I turned off the cold, I put them in," Bathily recounted. "I closed the door. I told them to stay calm and I said 'you stay quiet there, I'm going back out.'"

The hostage-taker reportedly ordered them to go upstairs but he did otherwise and later said if they might have been all dead if they followed the attacker's orders.

Bathily then managed to escape the area after getting out a freight elevator. Policemen saw him immediately and mistook him for an accomplice of the attackers.

He recalled how the officers told him to get down on the ground and put his hands over his head. They even handcuffed him and detained him for an hour.

Police later released him after determining that he was not one of the assailants. Bathily then led the authorities to the freezer where he kept the shoppers.

Bathily said that the shoppers thanked him and congratulated him profusely after they were all found safe. 

TagsMuslim hero, Lassana Bathily, hostage-taking, basement freezer, Paris