As a majority of the international community has abolished capital punishment. Japan and the U.S. are the only two countries in the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations that put people to death. The execution of Takami Sunao—an arsonist whose 2009 attack in Osaka killed five—on August 21, 2026, was Japan’s first use of capital punishment in just over a year. Over a Decade from Sentencing to Execution Takami Sunao was executed on August 21, 2026 , for a 2009 arson attack at an Osaka pachinko parlor that killed five people. In July 2009, Takami poured gasoline on the floor of a pachinko parlor in Osaka and set it alight, killing 5 customers and staff members and injuring 10 more. While the defense argued that he was in a state of diminished capacity, the Supreme Court finalized his death sentence in February 2016. The execution took place 17 years after the initial crime and 10 and a half years after the death sentence was finalized.
Gurung said he understood the outrage and calls for the death penalty following the incident but noted that Nepal’s Constitution prohibits the provision of capital punishment. Home Minister Sudhan Gurung has expressed sorrow over the heinous crime committed against a girl in Bara, saying that no weakness will be allowed in the investigation into the incident. Gurung said in a social media post on Saturday morning that he was “extremely saddened and shocked” by the incident. “The pain of such a crime committed against a young girl is not just the pain of one family; it is the pain of our entire society,” he wrote.