1,400 photos donated to remember horrors of Aum Shinrikyo 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.
According to Takeuchi, one of the first things the cult did after moving into the village was to build a 3-meter-high wall around a plot of grassland and start constructing facilities within it.
Takeuchi, who was a key member of a group of local residents, lodged protests each time there was an issue involving the cult. Every time, the cult asked for evidence, prompting Takeuchi to carry around a camera and snap photos.
Takeuchi said that the infamous guru directly told him that he was fueling anti-Aum Shinrikyo sentiment among local residents. He also found that his phone had been bugged.
Despite the frightening situation, Takeuchi continued to take pictures on his camera until the cult's Kamikuishiki facilities were demolished in 1998.
Some 1,400 photos include ones capturing the strange-smelling white smoke escaping from a window of a facility used to manufacture sarin gas and of discolored plants near the cult's base.
Seiichi Takeuchi, who has donated about 1,400 photos he took during his years of confronting the now-defunct Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, speaks in an interview last month. |
Jiji
After a request from police, Takeuchi provided a photo of a car crash that occurred at the village. A truck that was in the background of the photo was the same vehicle later used in a sarin gas attack in the city of Matsumoto in Nagano Prefecture in 1994, which left eight people dead and over 140 others injured.
Takeuchi has provided police and the Public Security Intelligence Agency with his photos over the years.
Nearly 30 years after the cult left the village, Takeuchi donated his photos to the town of Fujikawaguchiko in March this year.
"I hope people don't forget what happened," Takeuchi said, adding that he hopes many people will see his photos.
The town government currently has about 130 photos, mainly those of the Aum Shinrikyo facilities, on display at a local educational center.
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