A top executive with Japan Rail has killed himself after being arrested for groping a schoolgirl, which he denied even in his suicide note.
The 56-year-old branch manager of JR’s Hanwa Line was accused of touching the nether regions of a 17-year-old schoolgirl through her clothes whilst on a train, and was arrested and charged under Osaka prefectural anti-groping laws.
He protested his innocence despite the girl’s accusation, saying “I may have brushed her arm but I have no recollection of groping her.”
Police attempted to prolong his detention whilst they “investigated” further, but courts decided it was safe to release him despite his insolent protestations of innocence, and also denied a police appeal against this reckless decision.
Shortly after his release he went missing, only to be discovered dead in an Osaka public toilet, having apparently hanged himself. He left a note proclaiming “I am not a chikan.”
Online there are some doubts about the case:
“You can’t help but think that a world where the mere suspicion you are a dirty chikan is enough to force you to suicide is insane.”
“Don’t kill yourself if the accusation is false!”
“If it was just a false accusation, you wouldn’t normally kill yourself over it. He was probably guilty.”
“No, it was a false accusation so he killed himself as there was no way to clear his name?”
“He wouldn’t have killed himself if he were actually doing it and got caught.”
“”Even if you are a chikan, it is not worth killing yourself over.”
“Haven’t you people been falsely accused of something? If nobody will believe you are innocent you might well decide to kill yourself.”
“Why don’t the mass media go an quiz chikan victims on how they feel about this for once?”
“He could have recovered from the charges.”
“It was over for him, I doubt he would have been able to recover from this. He could have lived on peacefully in seclusion I suppose.”
“There is no way he could have recovered and started over – he was a career executive in a huge company, come on.”
“Why do you guys only ever assume chikan are innocent and condemn everyone else?”
“Why does this country assume all those accused of this are guilty and that they deserve to die? It’s madness.”
“JR will soon need to consider men-only carriages!”
“Cameras and separate carriages are needed.”
“What were the courts thinking to allow them to release this man!”
“What was this girl doing out of the women only carriage.”
“If it was a false charge he should have worked to fix the rail system so it stops producing all these cases.”
“Right. The real problem here is the rail system which keeps cramming together passengers and so producing both these chikan and all the false accusations. If you can arrest chikan, JR should also be held accountable for creating this environment.”
Men of Japan are in great danger. Japanese women are the apex predators there.
Great graphics, Artefact, once again you’ve outdone yourself.
You know that something is wrong with your country when you need to keep people of different gender away from one another.
“Don’t Kill yourself if the accusation is false.”
s♥♥t. Don’t kill yourself even if the accusation is true! Jeebus.
I can see why he killed himself. I blame the police.