Mitaka incident

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Mitaka Incident

The Mitaka incident (三鷹事件, Mitaka jiken^?) was an incident that took place on July 15, 1949 when an unmanned runaway train with its operating handle tied down drove into Mitaka Station on the Chūō Line in Tokyo, Japan killed 6 people and injured 20.

Though the incident remains shrouded in mystery, along with the Shimoyama and Matsukawa incidents, but it is commonly recorded to have been committed as a plot by the National Railway Workers' Union. The government indicted ten people on a change of train sabotage resulting in death, and in a court ruling in 1955, one employee of Japanese National Railways, Keisuke Takeuchi, was sentenced to death; the other defendants were freed. Nine of the defendents were members of the Japan Communist Party. Takeuchi died in jail in 1967 due to a brain tumour. Until his death, he continued to proclaim his innocence.

The Matsukawa derailment occurred about a month after the incident.