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	1 June 2001 Around 21:00 (UTC+05:45)
Target	The Nepali Royal Family King Birendra of Nepal
Attack type	Fratricide, patricide, sororicide, regicide, matricide, avunculicide, mass murder, murder-suicide, massacre
Weapons	Colt M16A2 rifle H&K MP5K 9mm submachine gun Franchi SPAS-12 shotgun Glock 19 9mm pistol
Deaths	10 (including the perpetrator)
Injured	5
Perpetrator	Crown Prince Dipendra Bir Bikram Shah

The Nepalese royal massacre occurred on 1 June 2001, at a house in the grounds of the Narayanhity Royal Palace, then the residence of the Nepalese monarchy. The government declared that the heir to the throne, Prince Dipendra, killed nine members of his family and himself. However, the majority of citizens in Nepal condemned and disapproved the press conference issued, which referred to the Late Prince Dipendra as a mass murderer. The dead included King Birendra of Nepal and Queen Aiswarya. Prince Dipendra became de jure King of Nepal upon his father's death and died whilst in a coma three days after the act. There are claims like that of a junior army staff deputed at the Narayanhiti Palace that Dipendra was already dead before being declared as the King. Gyanendra became king after the massacre along with the sentiment in Nepal disapproving prince Dipendra as the murderer.

Overview of events

According to reports, Dipendra had been drinking heavily and had "misbehaved" with a guest, which resulted in his father, King Birendra, telling his son to leave the party. The drunken Dipendra was taken to his room by his brother Prince Nirajan and cousin Prince Paras.

One hour later, Dipendra returned to the party armed with an H&K MP5, a Franchi SPAS-12 and an M16 and fired a single shot into the ceiling before turning the gun on his father, King Birendra. Seconds later, Dipendra shot one of his aunts. He then shot his uncle Dhirendra in the chest at point-blank range when he tried to stop Dipendra. During the shooting, Prince Paras suffered slight injuries and managed to save at least three royals, including two children, by pulling a sofa over them. During the attack, Dipendra darted in and out of the room firing shots each time.

Excerpts from the two-member committee report by Chief Justice Keshab Prasad Upadhyaya say that Nepal's late King Birendra had made an abortive last-minute attempt to shoot at his son, then Crown Prince Dipendra as the latter fired indiscriminately on the royals at the Narayanhity Palace on the night of June 1, according to the details of the official probe report released in Kathmandu. After getting injured in the first attack by Dipendra, the late King Birendra picked up the 9mm caliber MP-5K automatic sub-machine gun, which the former had thrown before entering the billiards room in the palace for the second time and firing at the monarch and others, the late king's sister Princess Shova Shahi is quoted as having told the high-level probe panel However, Shahi snatched the weapon from her brother and pulled out the magazine thinking that it was the only weapon Dipendra had. Corrborating Shova Shahi's version, Prince Paras is quoted as having said, "She (Shova) must have thought that it was the only weapon Dai (Dipendra) had but I saw that he had much more weapons."

His mother, Queen Aishwarya, who came into the room when the first shots were fired, left quickly, looking for help.

Dipendra's mother Aishwarya and his brother Nirajan confronted him in the garden of the palace, where they were both shot dead. Dipendra then proceeded to a small bridge over a stream running through the palace, where he shot himself.

Lamteri, a junior army staff at Narayanhiti Palace, claimed that he saw Dipendra, who got six bullet shots on his back and one on the left hand, in an inebriated state in his private room before the royal family was killed.

Victims of the massacre

• King Birendra
• Queen Aishwarya
• Prince (later HM King) Dipendra
• Prince Nirajan
• Princess Shruti
• (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 Gyanendra's wife and former Queen
• (Princess) Ketaki Chester, King Birendra's cousin who had renounced her title.

Aftermath

Dipendra was proclaimed King while in a coma, but he died on 4 June 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.

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 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."

Rumours regarding cause of massacre

The widely circulated rumour 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. 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.It is also speculated that the reason for marriage dispute over Dipendra's choice was that the royal family had a position that the crown prince should not marry someone having relatives in India, as Devyani did. Also, the fact that Devyani Rana mother Usharaje Scindia, whose Gwalior royal lineage wasn't considered impressive by the Nepal royal family. Prince Dipendra also courted for Supriya Shah who was the grand-daughter of Queen Mother Ratna's own sister. Queen Aishwarya though initially against the relationship due to family ties and view that Supriya could be incompetent as a queen as heard by an aide, yet she was approved more largely than Devyani Rana by the queen as then the Shah dynasty didn't have to share its power with the Ranas and would result in forming a political alliance.

The story that Prince Dipendra had married Devyani secretly in the week before the killings was speculated to fit with the astrological prophecy made in a certain newspaper. A few months ago, Nepali newspapers carried the chilling prediction by a soothsayer that both the king and queen would die if the Crown Prince married before he reached the age of 35. Though royal family insiders pooh-poohed this at the time, newspaper readers took the news seriously and in their grief last week found enough latitude to gossip about the prince's love life. One highly improbable story says the prince married Devyani in secret, perhaps at a Hindu temple in India. It was why the prediction came chillingly true, courtesy the prince. Though the logic seems impeccable, it is not considered true due to the inability to explain the massacre of the royal family rationally.

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

Many Nepalese people are skeptical of the official report that the then Crown Prince Dipendra carried out the murder. King Birendra and his son Dipendra were very popular and well respected by the Nepalese population. Subsequently, Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, the chairman of the Nepalese Maoist Party, in a public gathering claimed that the massacre was planned by the Indian intelligence agency RAW or the American CIA. Promoters of these ideas allege Gyanendra had a hand in the massacre so that he could assume the throne himself. His ascension to the throne would only be possible if both of his nephews Dipendra and Nirajan were eliminated. Moreover, Gyanendra and specially his son Prince Paras were grossly unpopular with the public. On that fateful day he was out of town (in Pokhara) while rest of the royals were attending a dinner function. His wife Komal, Paras and daughter Prerana were in the room at the royal palace during the massacre. While the entire families of Birendra and Dipendra were wiped out, nobody amongst Gyanendra's family died; his son escaped with slight injuries, His wife sustained a life threatening bullet wound but survived.

Despite the fact that two survivors have publicly confirmed that Dipendra did the shooting, as was documented in a BBC documentary, many Nepali people still consider it a mystery. After the monarchy was abolished through a populist uprising there have been several claims refuting the official report among them is a recent book 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 the previous king King Mahendra committed suicide.

A Nepalese soldier claiming to be an eyewitness to the tragedy has said Crown Prince Dipendra, blamed for the ghastly act, was killed before the rest of his family members on the fateful Friday night. Dipendra was killed on 1 June at the Royal palace before his father King Birendra and mother Queen Aishwarya died of gun shots during a dinner party, Lal Bahadur Lamteri told Nepali language newspaper Naya Patrika. The paper also questioned the official probe commission's report holding Dipendra responsible for the killings. Most of the Nepalese people also do not back the official version and believe that there was a conspiracy involved to eliminate the royal family following which the last King Gyanendra succeeded his brother Birendra to the throne. Lamteri, a junior army staff deputed at the Narayanhiti Palace during the period, gave claims to Naya Patrika that Paras, son of now ousted King Gyanendra and cousin brother of Dipendra, came to the palace dinner party that night accompanied by a person wearing a Dipendra look-alike mask, who shot Dipendra dead before other royal family members were killed.

Supriya Shah, a schooltime friend of prince Dipendra whom he had courted, said that she had a talk with Dipendra even on the fateful day. Shah told the panel, "I had talked with him over the phone around 11:09 am, but we did not talk anything special. We talked normally and he said that he would call me that night. But he did not call."

See also

• List of massacres in Nepal
• Super Star (2002 Indian film) which was loosely based on the love story of Dipendra of Nepal and Devyani Rana, and the Nepalese royal massacre.
• Ludwig II of Bavaria (1845–1886), whose death, allegedly by drowning, remains an unsolved mystery.
• Mayerling Incident

External links

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