Photo/Illutration The railroad crossing on Dec. 21, 2023, where a man was killed by a train in Tokyo’s Itabashi Ward (Shomei Nagatsuma)

Tokyo police have arrested four men on suspicion of confining and murdering a co-worker who was so broken down by abuse that he obeyed their orders to stand in front of an oncoming train.

The four suspects, including Manabu Sasaki, 39, who runs MA-Kensou, a painting company based in Kodaira, western Tokyo, are believed to have forced the worker, Osamu Takano, to enter train tracks at a railroad crossing in December 2023, investigative sources said Dec. 8.

Takano, 56, manually raised the crossing circuit barrier, stepped onto the tracks on the Tobu Tojo Line in Tokyo’s Itabashi Ward, and was struck by a train.

His death was initially believed to be a suicide.

In the subsequent investigation, Tokyo police determined that daily and vicious assaults by the four suspects had trapped Takano in a situation where he had no choice but to obey their orders, even to die.

Therefore, police opened a murder investigation against them, the sources said.

The other three suspects are: Akihito Shimahata, 34, who lives in Itabashi Ward; Shunta Nozaki, 39, from Higashi-Yamato, western Tokyo; and Atsuya Iwaide, 30, who resides in Kodaira.

The three are all employees of Sasaki’s company.

Police said the four told investigators that they had beaten Takano because “he worked so slow.” But police did not disclose whether they had admitted to or denied the murder allegations.

According to investigators, the four men conspired to confine Takano in a car in Itabashi Ward on the night of Dec. 2, 2023.

They drove him to the railroad crossing in the Tokumaru district of the ward and ordered him to enter the tracks.

They then instructed him to stay put until the train ran over him, police said, adding that the suspects wanted the death to look like a suicide.

Investigators checked footage from nearby security cameras and found that two cars were seen dropping off Takano near the crossing. The vehicles left the scene after he was hit by the train.

Police traced the vehicles to Shimahata and Nozaki.

Smartphones seized from the four suspects revealed the extent of abuse they inflicted on Takano.

The phones contained videos of violent assaults against their co-worker, including burning and scarring his body. In other attacks, they performed excessive “pro-wrestling” techniques on Takano.

There were indications he was also bullied daily on social networking sites, police said.

Photos on the smartphones indicated they had been assaulting Takano for about four years.

After consulting psychologists about the situation, police determined that Takano was forced to follow the instructions of his tormentors and stand in front of the oncoming train as a result of the daily abuse.

Police also concluded that two of the suspects--Sasaki and Iwaide--who were not near the railroad crossing when Takano entered the tracks were involved in the conspiracy to kill him.

According to the sources, Takano was born in Hakodate, Hokkaido. He dropped out of high school in the city and worked for a local painting company before moving to Tokyo around 1993.

He worked at construction companies and was also a day laborer. He began working at MA Kenso around 2014.

Takano was a live-in worker who stayed in a room rented by the company.

He was paid in food instead of wages for his work. The investigation showed he was not fed for some time before his death, the sources said.

(This article was written by Minami Endo, Shomei Nagatsuma and Hiromichi Fujita.)

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