TOKYO (Agencies via Xinhua) _ A district of Tokyo decided yesterday to deny residency permits to anyone connected with the Aum Supreme Truth cult that was responsible for a 1995 gas attack on the capital's subway, reports said.

Cult disciples have flocked to the Adachi ward, where a detention centre is home to the doomsday sect's leader, Shoko Asahara, while he fights 17 criminal charges.

Among the charges he faces is the masterminding of a March 1995 attack on Tokyo's subway in which the Nazi-invented sarin nerve gas killed 12 people and injured thousands.

Adachi ward municipal authorities have set up a task force to battle the cult's presence in its area, said reports by Kyodo News agency and the Yomiuri Shimbun's evening edition.

According to the reports, the task force agreed in its first meeting to deny residency permits to anyone linked to the Aum Supreme Truth sect and to ban disciples from community facilities.

A residency permit is required for a person to settle in a certain community with full legal rights and obligations.

The government warned, however, that local communities had no power to refuse residency in such cases.

"Generally speaking, we cannot reject resident registries by people who want to settle in an area," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka.

But "I can understand the actions taken by the heads of local communities because the Aum Supreme Truth is a group which has committed very serious crimes," he said.

The cult "has not acknowledged its wrongdoing as a group while the trial of its leader is not proceeding smoothly and the number of Aum followers is increasing in different places," Nonaka said.

The government was tightening control over the cult's activities "as much as possible," while considering legal changes to resolve the problem, the minister said.

Japan's government had contacted the justice ministry, asking it to reintroduce an anti-subversive law or draw up fresh legislation to crack down on the sect, Nonaka said.

China Daily 1999/07/20