Nepalese royal massacre

Nepalese royal massacre
The Narayanhity Royal Palace, former home of the Royal Family. Following the abdication of the king and the founding of a republic, the building and its grounds have been turned into a museum.
Location	Narayanhity Royal Palace, Kathmandu, Nepal
Date	June 1, 2001 about 21:00 (UTC+5:45)
Target	The Nepali Royal Family King Birendra of Nepal
Attack type	Fratricide, patricide, sororicide, regicide, matricide, avunculicide, mass murder, murder-suicide, massacre
Deaths	10 (including the perpetrator)
Injured	5
Perpetrator(s)	Crown Prince Dipendra Bir Bikram Shah (It has not been proven)

The Nepalese royal massacre occurred on Friday, June 1, 2001, at a house in the grounds of the Narayanhity Royal Palace, then the residence of the Nepalese monarchy, when the heir to the throne, Prince Dipendra killed nine members of his family and himself. The dead included King Birendra of Nepal and Queen Aiswarya, Dipendra's father and mother. Prince Dipendra became de jure King of Nepal upon his father's death and died whilst in a coma three days after the act; however there are claims that Dipendra was already dead before being declared as the King. Gyanendra then became king.

Victims of the massacre

• King Birendra, father
• Queen Aishwarya, mother
• Prince (later HM King) Dipendra, perpetrator
• Prince Nirajan, brother
• Princess Shruti, sister
• (Prince) Dhirendra, King Birendra's brother who had renounced his title
• Princess Jayanti, King Birendra's cousin
• Princess Shanti, King Birendra's sister
• Princess Sharada, King Birendra's sister
• Kumar Khadga, Princess Sharada's husband

Wounded

• Princess Shova, King Birendra's sister
• Gorakh Shamsher, Princess Shruti's husband
• Princess Komal, Prince (now former King) Gyanendra's wife and former Queen
• (Princess) Ketaki Chester, King Birendra's cousin who had renounced her title
• Prince Paras

Aftermath

Dipendra was proclaimed King while in a coma, but he died on June 4, 2001, after a three-day reign. Gyanendra was appointed regent for the three days, then ascended the throne himself after Dipendra died.

While Dipendra lived, Gyanendra maintained that the deaths were the result of an "accidental discharge of an automatic weapon". However, he later said that he made this claim due to "legal and constitutional hurdles", since under the constitution, and by tradition, Dipendra could not have been charged with murder had he survived. A full investigation took place, and Crown Prince Dipendra was found to be responsible for the killing.

The widely circulated rumor is that Prince Dipendra was angry over a marriage dispute. Dipendra's choice of bride was Devyani Rana, daughter of Pashupati SJB Rana, a member of the Rana clan, against whom the Shah dynasty have a historic animosity.^{[citation needed]} The Rana clan had served as the hereditary prime ministers of Nepal until 1951, with the title Maharaja, and the two clans have a long history of inter-marriages.^{[citation needed]}

A two-man committee comprising Keshav Prasad Upadhaya, the then-Supreme Court Chief Justice, and Taranath Ranabhat, the then-Speaker of the House of Representatives, carried out the week-long investigation into the massacre. The investigation concluded, after interviewing more than a hundred people including eyewitnesses and palace officials, guards and staff, that Dipendra had carried out the massacre. Large number of critics and Nepalis, both inside Nepal and abroad, disputed the official report because many facts and evidence reported by the investigation team seemed in contradictory in many aspects. A close aide of Dipendra when he was prince said of Dipendra, "He can give up the throne for the sake of his love, but he can never do this kind of thing."^{[citation needed]}

Ceremonial response

On 11 June 2001, a Hindu katto ceremony was held to exorcise or banish the spirit of the dead King from Nepal. A brahmin Durga Prasad Sapkota, dressed as Birendra to symbolise the late King, rode an elephant out of Kathmandu and into symbolic exile, taking many of the actual belongings of the King with him.

Conspiracy theories

Subsequently, the chairman of Nepal Maoists Party in a public gathering also stated that the massacre was planned by China. Almost all people in Nepal suspected that Gyanendra was responsible for the royal palace massacre in liaison with Inter Services Intelligence of Pakistan (ISI) and CIA of USA on June 1, 2001, and that he had blamed Dipendra so that he could assume the throne himself. Gyanendra was as unpopular in the country as his son Paras. He had been third in line to the throne before the massacre. He was out of town (in Pokhara) during the massacre and was the closest surviving relative of the king. Gyanendra's wife and son were in the room at the royal palace during the massacre. While his son escaped with slight injuries, his wife was more seriously injured during the incident.^{[citation needed]} However, few people including crown prince Paras survived and coincidentally the then prince Gyanendra had to be out of town that day.

Despite the fact that two survivors have publicly confirmed that Dipendra was doing the shooting, as was documented in a BBC documentary, many Nepali people still consider it a mystery. Recently, a book was published in Nepal named Raktakunda recounting the massacre. It looks at the incident through the eyes of one of the surviving witnesses, Queen Mother Ratna's personal maid, identified in the book as Shanta. The book, which the author says is a "historical novel", posits that two men masked as Crown Prince Dipendra fired the shots that led to the massacre. Shanta's husband, Trilochan Acharya, also a royal palace employee, was killed along with 10 royal family members, including the entire family of King Birendra. In addition to details of the royal massacre, Shanta alleged many other cover-ups by the royal family, including a claim that King Mahendra committed suicide.

See also

• List of massacres in Nepal

External links

• Nepal: Murder in Palace, Maoists in Mountains (RWOR)
• Trapped in tradition (Frontline: India's National Magazine)
• Eyewitness Statements