Tokyo Residents Breathe Easier After News of Arrest : Reaction: With security forces on alert, citizens seem less fearful about chance of another nerve gas attack.

In the wake of today’s arrest of Aum Supreme Truth leader Shoko Asahara, a still-nervous Tokyo braced for possible revenge attacks but looked forward to an early end to the threat of poison-gas terrorism.

“From today, the fear isn’t of organized action by Aum officials but of independent attacks by ordinary followers,” businessman Kazuhiro Okamoto, 33, said. “I’m still nervous. But there’s no point in thinking about it. We have to rely on the ability of the police.”

Tokyo was flooded with 80,000 extra police officers, while Self-Defense Forces chemical units and firefighters were on alert to cope with possible revenge attacks.

Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama warned at a morning news conference that the possibility that Aum members might still have deadly sarin gas in their possession “cannot be ruled out.”

“It’s frightening, but you die when your time comes,” businessman Takashi Yamamoto, 23, said. “There’s nothing individuals can do to protect themselves. This is fate.”

But among Tokyo citizens, there also was a widespread sense that the weeks of uncertainty and fear that followed the deadly March 20 sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway system will soon be over.

“I think it’s possible there will still be gas attacks, but I’m not very frightened,” said Saori Fujimaki, 23, an office worker at a medical equipment company. “The police are on very strict guard. Compared to last week, I think we’re safer now.”

With the mystery of the sarin attack apparently solved and key Aum leaders under arrest, many people looked toward the future in their concerns about Aum Supreme Truth: Will the organization be disbanded? What will become of the ordinary believers? Can they re-integrate into society? Or will some perhaps remain united in some kind of fringe organization? Will any followers commit suicide?

While ordinary citizens in Tokyo are highly critical of Aum, it is not unusual for people to express some sympathy for its members. People also wonder what will happen to Fumihiro Joyu, an Aum lawyer who has appeared on many television talk shows in defense of the cult.

“Aum’s character is more like a profit-making corporation than a religious group,” Okamoto said. “The goal is to survive if Armageddon comes. Since the point is how to survive, I don’t think they’ll commit suicide.”

Okamoto and many others interviewed on Tokyo’s streets and at subway stations said they felt sorry for the ordinary believers of Aum.

“They entered Aum because they wanted to depend on someone,” Okamoto said. “People who were pitiful to begin with were tricked and became more pitiful.”

Okamoto predicted that believers will divide into two categories: one group that will try, with great difficulty, to re-integrate into normal society and another group that will remain loyal to Aum.

Yamamoto, who was interviewed at the Kasumigaseki subway station that was targeted in the sarin gas attack, said he too felt that “to some degree, the lower-level followers are victims.”

“Those with the holy names [adopted by Aum leaders] are the murderers,” he said.

“I don’t think Aum will completely disappear. It’ll probably keep going in a small way.”

“Asahara probably will never get out of jail the rest of his life,” Yamamoto said. “Some media say he has liver cancer. Anyway, he’ll probably die in jail. If he really has cancer and says he wants to die at home, I think that would be OK. I have just a little bit of sympathy for him. He’s pitiful too. He’s a fallen leader. They called him a teacher, but that was a lie. He was a confidence man.

“What I’m worried about now is there are about 20 people who haven’t been arrested yet. How much sarin do they have? How pure is it? What will happen to Joyu? With his personality, it’s possible he’ll end up as a television commentator. I’d hate that.”

Homemaker Yuko Kawato said she felt “a kind of relief.”

“But for us to have a truly peaceful life as before,” she said, “all the Aum leaders should be arrested and the group should be broken up.”

Times researcher Megumi Shimizu in Tokyo contributed to this article.