TOKYO (AFP) - Japan's intelligence agency Thursday launched inspections of a new offshoot of a doomsday cult that launched a deadly nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subway in 1995, reports said.
It was the agency's first monitoring of the splinter group, named Hikari no Wa ("Circle of Brilliance"), since a reputedly moderate former leader of the Aum Supreme Truth cult started the offshoot earlier this week.
The Public Security Intelligence Agency inspected more than 10 facilities including those of the main Aum sect, with television footage showing dozens of investigators walking into one site in Tokyo.
Jiji Press reported about 20 inspectors walked into the building of the new group.
The agency was not immediately available for comments.
Fumihiro Joyu, who has portrayed himself as the moderate face of the Aum sect, decided to defect in March with 65 followers to break away from the cult's apocalyptic-minded founder Shoko Asahara.
But a report by Japanese authorities last month charged that Joyu and his followers were only pretending to have broken away from the main group.
The bearded, half-blind Asahara is awaiting execution for the sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway which killed 12 people and injured thousands in March 1995.
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