1,400 Photos Donated to Remember Horror of Aum Shinrikyo

   Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Pref., May 17 (Jiji Press)--A 97-year-old man from central Japan has donated about 1,400 photos taken during his years of confronting the now-defunct Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult.
   The former village of Kamikuishiki, currently the town of Fujikawaguchiko in Yamanashi Prefecture, was once home to the largest Aum Shinrikyo base in Japan.
   Kamikuishiki resident Seiichi Takeuchi waged a battle against the group from the time the cult set up the base in the village's Fujigane district in 1989.
   At the base, the group put up many facilities, called "satyam," some of which were used to manufacture sarin nerve gas. Aum Shinrikyo used the nerve gas in an attack on Tokyo's subway system in 1995, which left 14 people dead and over 6,000 others injured.
   The cult finally left the village in 1996, after the arrest of its leader Chizuo Matsumoto, who went by the name of Shoko Asahara, in 1995. Matsumoto was executed in 2018.

(2025/05/17-10:00)