Tokyo subway gas attack

Tokyo subway sarin attack 地下鉄サリン事件
Kasumigaseki Station, one of the many stations affected during the attack
Location	Tokyo, Japan
Date	March 20, 1995 (1995-03-20) 7:00–8:10 a.m. (UTC+9)
Target	Tokyo subway
Attack type	Chemical warfare
Weapon	Sarin
Deaths	12
Non-fatal injuries	4,000+ (including one attacker) a
Perpetrators	Aum Shinrikyo
No. of participants	10
a 17 critical (some later died), 50 severe, 984 temporary vision problems.

The Tokyo subway sarin attack (Subway Sarin Incident (地下鉄サリン事件, Chikatetsu Sarin Jiken)), was an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated on March 20, 1995, in Tokyo, Japan, by members of the cult movement Aum Shinrikyo.

In five coordinated attacks, the perpetrators released sarin on three lines of the present-day Tokyo Metro (then part of the Tokyo subway) during rush hour, killing 12 people, severely injuring 50 and causing temporary vision problems for nearly 5,000 others. The attack was directed against trains passing through Kasumigaseki and Nagatachō, home to the Japanese government. Until the Myojo 56 building fire on September 1, 2001, it was the deadliest incident to occur in Japan since the end of World War II.

Aum Shinrikyo is the former name of a controversial group now known as "Aleph". In 1992, Shoko Asahara, the founder of Aum Shinrikyo, published a book in which he declared himself "Christ", Japan's only fully enlightened master, and identified with the "Lamb of God". He outlined a doomsday prophecy, which included a Third World War, and described a final conflict culminating in a nuclear Armageddon, borrowing the term from the Book of Revelation 16:16. His purported mission was to take upon himself the sins of the world, and he claimed he could transfer to his followers spiritual power and take away their sins. He also saw dark conspiracies everywhere promulgated by Jews, Freemasons, the Dutch, the British Royal Family, and rival Japanese religions.