Mar 19 (Japan Today) - 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 spinoffs 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.
"It (Aleph) is a group that firmly instructs its followers to see Asahara as the supreme being," an agency investigator told AFP, 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," he said.
Raids on Aleph facilities have found recordings of his teachings as well as a device used by the Aum cult known as a "Perfect Salvation Initiation", a type of headgear that emits weak electric currents which members believe connects them to Asahara's brainwaves.
Source: ANNnewsCH
