Tokyo time-bomb mystery

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33628, 2 September 1974, Page 13

Tokyo time-bomb mystery

(N.Z. Press Assn—Copyright) TOKYO, September 1.

The Tokyo police say that they are still not sure whether Leftist terrorists or an individual with an unknown motive planted the timebomb outside the giant Mitsubishi office building that killed eight people and injured nearly 300 on Friday.

Investigators said yesterday that they had no evidence to rule out either pos-

sibility, but nearly every Tokyo newspaper blames the bombing on Japan’s ultraLeft terrorists.

The police say that chemicals were added to a large amount of dynamite in reinforced metal containers to make the bomb, which exploded in an area crowded with lunchtime strollers near the 10-storey headquarters of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

A telephone-caller gave a warning of the blast four minutes before it occurred, and shortly after the explosion the Mitsubishi office in Osaka received a telephone call threatening: “We shall register a classstruggle protest in Osaka on Saturday, as we have done in Tokyo.”

At least 100 similar warnings were telephoned to other Japanese buildings or businesses within hours of the blast, but no other explosions occurred. A visitor to the building told the police that he had seen two packages wrapped

in brown paper near the main entrance of the building, and many of the injured have told investigators that they heard two blasts in quick succession. Sources at the special police investigation headquarters say that the force of the blast equalled that of an explosion of between 600 and 700 dynamite sticks. Nearly 2000 workers, in-

eluding Mitsubishi employees, and policemen worked yesterday to clear the street of shattered window glass. Mitsubishi estimates that the blast destroyed $U5430,000 worth of glass. Most newspapers blame the bombing threats on the Rengo Sekigun (United Red Army), an ultra-Left terrorist group with a long record of robbery and killing.