Twin blasts
Japan cops probing explosions at park that killed one retired soldier and injured three others.
tOkyO: A retired soldier was killed and several people injured by twin blasts at a Japanese park in what may have been a bizarre suicide, police and reports said.
A festival was under way at the park yesterday when the 72-yearold former member of Japan’s SelfDefence Forces apparently set off an explosive device that killed him and left three people injured, the Kyodo news agency reported, citing police.
“One person was found dead,” a local fire department spokesman said without elaborating.
Police found pensioner Toshikatsu Kurihara at around noon in the park in Utsunomiya city, some 100km north of Tokyo, after receiving a call about a person engulfed in flames following what sounded liked a blast, reports said.
Police suspect that Kurihara killed himself and a suicide note with his name on it was found inside a sock he was wearing, Kyodo said.
“I pay with my life,” the note reportedly said, expressing concerns about family issues.
Two men aged 58 and 64 were seriously injured in the blast, while a 14-year-old student was left with minor injuries.
Several cars, including Kurihara’s, were found burning in a nearby parking lot following reports of separate blasts there.
No one was injured in those explosions, Kyodo said.
One man told public broadcaster NHK that he “smelled gunpowder in the area” after the explosions.
The festival was called off following the blasts, the paper added.
Meanwhile, Kurihara’s house in the city, where he reportedly lived alone, was burnt to the ground yesterday morning.
Explosions of this kind are rare in Japan, although small pipe bomb blasts linked to extreme leftists occasionally hit near US military bases. — AFP