Gunman Wounds Japan’s Top-Ranking Police Official : Crime: It is unclear whether the attack is related to the probe into the sect suspected of last week’s nerve gas attack.

TOKYO — Japan’s top police official, in charge of the investigation of last week’s deadly nerve gas attack on Tokyo’s subways, was shot four times by a masked assailant this morning.

Takaji Kunimatsu, 57, chief of the National Police Agency, was shot from behind as he was leaving his condominium on the way to work. The gunman, wearing a black raincoat and white surgical mask, fled by bicycle.

Kunimatsu, who sustained injuries in his shoulder, stomach and leg, is in stable condition at a hospital.

It is unclear whether the shooting is connected to the subway attack investigation. The Aum Supreme Truth cult, target of a weeklong police search, immediately denied involvement.

Kunimatsu also instigated a crackdown this year on organized crime and gun smuggling, and observers suggest the gunman could be a disgruntled gangster.

After the shooting, several Tokyo television stations received anonymous calls threatening Tokyo’s police chief, Yukihiko Inoue.

“I did Kunimatsu. Inoue is next,” the caller warned, without giving a motive.

Police have launched an all-out search for the assailant. “This is an attack on our authority,” said Hiromu Nonaka, head of the government’s National Public Safety Commission. “We must do our utmost to find the criminal.”

The shooting, coming on the heels of the sarin gas attack, is shaking Japan’s image as one of the world’s safest nations.

“The sarin incident was the first of its kind in the world, and the shooting of a national police chief is also a first for Japan,” said Ryuzo Saki, a crime writer. “It’s a very abnormal situation, and very critical to stop these problems.”

Public fear of crime has rapidly escalated in the last few years as more guns, drugs and gangs have infiltrated society.

Police are particularly alarmed at the surge in handguns being smuggled into Japan. Possession of firearms among gangsters has long been a problem, but now police are trying to stem gun-related crimes among ordinary citizens. Last year, 482 guns were seized from non-gangsters--a pittance compared to the number of guns seized in the United States, but six times higher than Japan’s 1991 figure.

“The situation is serious,” Kunimatsu said at an international law enforcement conference in November. “Without proper measures, Japan could find itself with a gun problem equal to that of the United States.”

Two months ago, Japan started an anti-gun campaign urging: “Let’s have a gun-free society.”

This month, Kunimatsu’s National Police Agency proposed a tougher gun-control law.