Explosion at Japanese PM Fumio Kishida's rally reminds of Shinzo Abe's assassination

The explosion in Japan's Wakayama Saikazaki fishing port, where Japanese PM Fumio Kishida was touring and inspecting, has scared everyone. The incident has drawn attention back to the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was shot in July last year. The explosion that has taken place on April 15th is quite similar to the attack that took place on Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, on July 8, 2022. 

The deadly attack on the former PM was condemned by Kishida, who said that it was "barbaric and malicious and it cannot be tolerated." The assassination was "an act of brutality that happened during the elections - the very foundation of our democracy - and is absolutely unforgivable," he had said.

On Saturday, when Japanese PM Fumio Kishida was moving forward to address the rally at the port, he was targeted with some sort of "smoke bomb", as per the local media reports. However, the PM of Japan was successfully evacuated from the site where the explosion took place. The blast took place when Kishida was visiting the Saikazaki port in Wakayama prefecture to cheer his Liberal Democratic Party’s candidate in a local election. The explosion was heard and plumes of smoke enveloped the port where the PM concluded his inspection tour and was moving forward to address the public. 

Drawing Parallel to Shinzo Abe's Assassination 

The longest-serving Prime Minister of Japan, Abe was shot while giving a campaign speech to a small crowd near a railway station in the city of Nara, Japan. The attack on the former Japanese pm took place in broad daylight which had shaken the nation. The "appeared to be a homemade weapon" was used to assassinate the former Japanese prime minister, in the country which is rarely associated with political and gun violence. Doctors who treated Abe revealed that the shot had penetrated all the way to his heart. Following the assassination, a man was immediately arrested and has been facing murder and firearms charges.

In case of the  Abe’s assassination, the attacker allegedly shot Abe with a homemade gun, while in today's attack, the suspect has used a smoke bomb targetting the current Japanese PM Kishida. According to Japan Times, the recent attack on Kishida was with an apparent smoke or pipe bomb which was hurled at the leader when he was talking to a Liberal Democratic Party candidate. The suspect involved in Abe's assassination, Tetsuya Yamagami, has been charged with murder and several other crimes including violation of a gun control law. However, in Kishida's rally bomb explosion, the details about the man, who is the prime suspect, have not been disclosed yet.

According to the AP report, Abe’s alleged assassin confessed to the investigators that he killed Abe, one of Japan’s most influential and divisive politicians, because of Abe’s apparent links to a religious group that he hated. Further,  in his statements, Yamagami stated that he had "developed a grudge because his mother had made massive donations to the Unification Church that bankrupted his family and ruined his life." At the time of Abe's assassination, top local and national police chiefs had resigned and strict security guidelines for political leaders and other prominent people were implemented. Since the changes made in the security protocols of political leaders, this was the first-ever attack on the Japanese PM Fumio Kishida.