Japan cult spin-offs persist two decades after subway sarin attack
Followers of Shoko Asahara’s Aum Shinrikyo split up after deadly 1995 nerve gas attack and severed ties, but there are fears execution of its leaders may renew interest in the doomsday cult
More than two decades after Japan’s Aum Shinrikyo cult plunged Tokyo into terror by releasing a nerve agent on rush-hour subway trains, its spin-offs continue to attract new followers.
Cult head Shoko Asahara is on death row, along with 12 of his disciples, for crimes including the subway attack, which killed 13 people and injured thousands.
He was arrested in 1995 in the wake of the sarin attack, but the Aum cult survived the crackdown, renaming itself Aleph and drawing new recruits into its fold.
Aleph officially renounced ties to Asahara in 2000, but the doomsday guru retains significant influence, according to Japan’s Public Security Intelligence Agency.
“[Aleph] is a group that firmly instructs its followers to see Asahara as the supreme being,” an agency investigator said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “If someone says ‘guru Asahara wants to bring down Japan’, there would be followers who would act. The group poses such a potential danger.”
