The Public Security Intelligence Agency requested Monday that Aum Shinrikyo and a splinter group be kept under surveillance for another three years, asserting the groups remain under the strong influence of cult founder Shoko Asahara and are still capable of mass murder.
The request, submitted to the Public Security Examination Commission, covers Aum, which carried out two sarin gas attacks in the 1990s and which renamed itself Aleph in 2000, as well as Hikari no Wa (Circle of Rainbow Light), led by senior Aum member Fumihiro Joyu.
First imposed in January 2000 and extended three times so far under a 1999 law to restrict groups that have committed indiscriminate mass murder, the measure allows the agency's inspectors to carry out on-site checks and obliges the doomsday cults to report the names and addresses of key members.