Japanese pensioner blows himself up in a park

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TOKYO. KAZINFORM - A former Self Defense Forces official apparently committed suicide by detonating a device shortly before noon Sunday in a park in Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, where a festival was being held, injuring three other people in the process, two seriously, according to local police.

Toshikatsu Kurihara, 72, was found with burns in Utsunomiya Joshi Park after police received a call at around 11:40 a.m. saying a person was engulfed in flames following the sound of a blast, Kyodo reports.

The police suspect that Kurihara, who lived in Utsunomiya, north of Tokyo, killed himself as a suicide note bearing his name was found in a sock he was wearing.

"I pay with my life," the note said, expressing anxieties related to family matters.

Mitsuo Tamura, 64, and Yoshinobu Hiratsuka, 58, were seriously injured, and a 14-year-old male local junior high school student sustained a minor injury.
The park is located about 500 meters southeast of Tobu Utsunomiya Station.

Shortly before that incident, several cars, including Kurihara's, were found burning in a nearby parking lot at around 11:30 a.m., following reports of blasts there. No one was injured in those fires.

Kurihara's house in the city was also destroyed by fire on Sunday morning. Kurihara, a former Ground Self-Defense Force official, had lived in the house alone, according to people in the neighborhood.

The police are investigating the association among all those incidents.

Source: Kyodo

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