HEADLINE: ABDUCTION OF BUSINESSMAN ALARMS JAPANESE
A wealthy Japanese industrialist was kidnapped Sunday in the first abduction of a prominent businessman here in memory. The incident baffled many Japanese and left some worried about ''Western-style'' crime breaking out in their country.
The kidnapping victim was Katsuhisa Ezaki, president of a major candy company, who was reported to have been abducted by two gunmen from his home near Osaka Sunday night. A ransom note demanding the equivalent of $4.5 million in cash and gold bullion was found later in an Osaka telephone booth.
Details of the incident and the investigation were sketchy because, after reporting the case in their early editions, Japanese newspapers and television stations complied with a police request for a news blackout. But enough information had been made public by this morning to trouble Japanese businessmen, who are not accustomed to the elaborate personal security measures that have become routine for the wealthy in the United States and Europe.
''I know cases of this kind happen overseas,'' Susumu Furukawa, president of the Osaka Chamber of Commerce and Industries, told Japanese reporters. ''It could not happen in Japan.'' 'Beyond my Imagination'
Hiroshi Morishita, vice president of Kansai Keidanren, an Osaka-area business group, said: ''If it was Italy I might not be so surprised. But, you know, in Japan such a kidnapping is beyond my imagination.''
Although the abduction of nationally prominent business figures is virtually unheard of here, the kidnappings of youngsters have begun to occur with increasing regularity. According to a study last month by the newspaper Asahi, 122 kidnappings had been recorded in Japan since the end of World War II. At least 60 occurred in the last 10 years.
Of the 122 cases, 72 involved children of elementary school age or younger. Twenty-four of them were killed, including the latest victim, an 8-year-old boy found strangled last month in the western Japanese city of Fukuyama.
Mr. Ezaki, 42 years old, heads the Ezaki Glico Company, an Osaka-based concern that produces chocolates, caramels, ice cream and instant curry. It reported sales last year of $540 million. Mr. Ezaki lives with his wife and three children in Nishinomiya, west of Osaka, in a compound where his 70- year-old mother also has a house.
According to the preliminary police account, two masked men carrying a pistol and an air rifle broke into the mother's house and forced her to give them the key to her son's residence nearby. They then entered Mr. Ezaki's house, tying up his wife and 8-year-old daughter, but leaving the two other children alone in another room. Forced Out of the Bath
At the time, Mr. Ezaki was taking a bath. The gunmen reportedly forced him out of the house without any clothes and drove off in a red car that neighbors had seen parked on the street.
The ransom note found in Osaka was said to have ordered that the money be delivered by 5 P.M. today, but because of the news blackout it was not known what actually happened. ''We have the hostage,'' a Japanese newspaper quoted the note as saying. ''Don't inform the police. The hostage will be returned if you pay.''
Normally, kidnappings are not made public in Japan until after arrests are made and the victims either returned safely or found dead. The exception in this case seems to have resulted from initial confusion over whether an abduction or a routine robbery had taken place.
In the close relationship that exists here between press organizations and the authorities, newspapers agreed to stop their coverage when it became clear that there had been a kidnapping. The Ezaki case was give the main display in every newspaper this morning. By this evening's editions it was nowhere to be found.