Public security authorities remain on alert over Aleph, a successor organization to the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, which carried out a sarin nerve gas attack in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, 30 years ago.
Aleph, which has most of the roughly 1,650 worshippers of Aum Shinrikyo's three successor groups, continues to worship the teachings of cult leader Chizuo Matsumoto, who went by the name of Shoko Asahara and was executed in 2018, as dogma. Authorities still believe that Aleph may conduct mass murders.
Aum Shinrikyo killed eight residents and injured more than 140 in Matsumoto by dispersing sarin gas in a residential neighborhood late on the night of June 27, 1994.
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