Japan Marks 24th Anniversary of Deadly Sarin Attack

March 20, 2019

Tokyo- A ceremony was held in Tokyo on Wednesday to mourn the victims of the deadly sarin gas attack by the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult on the capital's subway system 24 years ago, which killed 13 people and injured over 6,000.

At 8 a.m. (11 p.m. Tuesday GMT), around the time when the sarin attack was carried out in 1995, 16 workers of Tokyo Metro Co.'s Kasumigaseki Station observed a moment of silence at the station in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward, one of the attack sites.

Yoshiharu Ogawa, 55-year-old chief of Tokyo Metro's Kasumigaseki service area, laid flowers on an altar.

During the morning rush hour on March 20, 1995, Aum Shinrikyo members released the highly toxic nerve gas on the Hibiya, Marunouchi and Chiyoda lines of the Teito Rapid Transit Authority, the predecessor of Tokyo Metro.

At Kasumigaseki Station, Kazumasa Takahashi, then 50, and Tsuneo Hishinuma, then 51, both employees of the TRTA, died after being heavily exposed to sarin.

In July last year, the Justice Ministry executed a total of 13 former Aum Shinrikyo members, including its guru, Chizuo Matsumoto, who went by the pseudonym Shoko Asahara.

Takahashi's 72-year-old widow Shizue paid a visit to Kasumigaseki Station at around 9 a.m. to offer flowers on the altar.

She married Takahashi when she was 24 years old, and the sarin attack occurred 24 years later. Noting that another 24 years have passed since the incident, she said that she feels like this year marks a milestone.

On Wednesday marking the first anniversary of Takahashi's death since the executions, Shizue Takahashi said that she faced this year's anniversary "with a state of mind different from before."

"While my family will not come back or (the victims') aftereffects (from sarin) will not get better, I feel that the significance of the death penalty is growing day by day," she added. Jiji Press