TOKYO, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Japan marked the 24th anniversary Wednesday of a deadly sarin nerve gas attack carried out by the AUM Shinrikyo cult on the Tokyo subway system that left 13 people dead and injured more than 6,000.
A vigil was held at Kasumigaseki subway station where one of the deadly attacks took place, with station officials observing a moment of silence at 8 a.m. local time, which was around the time the attack took place 24 years ago.
Families of the victims and station officials offered flowers at an altar set up inside Kasumigaseki Station, the surrounding area of which is dominated by government ministers and other government-related offices.
Similar stands for flowers were set up at other stations where victims of the sarin attack also lost their lives.
Shoko Asahara, the doomsday cult's leader, was arrested two months after the attack on the subway system.
He was the mastermind behind the attack which used nerve gas and resulted in the killing of 13 people and left more than 6,000 others with severe injuries.
Asahara, 63, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, and 12 of his disciples were executed in July last year for crimes committed including the Tokyo subway attack.
Asahara was the first to be hanged among the cult members that were on death row in Japan at the time, for their roles in a number of fatal crimes carried out by the cult.
The group was also held responsible for an earlier sarin attack on June 27, 1994, in a parking lot near housing for judges in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, which killed eight people.
With the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympic Games less than 500 days away from the opening, the government is concerned that fundamentalist groups could once again target Tokyo's busy subway system.
