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Nepalese royal family massacred
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NEPAL'S prime minister asserted Sunday that eight members of the royal family were killed by ``accidental'' automatic weapon fire, contradicting officials who had suggested the crown prince killed his relatives in a dispute over his wedding plans.
In a written statement, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala said the shootings that killed King Birendra, the queen and six other royals were an accident and did not name Crown Prince Dipendra, who was on life support after the shootings, as the gunman. Dipendra was named king to succeed his father.
Official sources had said Saturday that Dipendra shot his parents and six other relatives to death late Friday before turning the gun on himself in a rampage that a senior military official said apparently erupted after his mother, Queen Aiswarya, objected to his intended bride.
Details of the massacre at the royal palace in Kathmandu on Friday are only just beginning to emerge.
The sequence of events remains sketchy, and the official Nepalese media have not given any information except to confirm that the King and Queen have died.
Reports from the Nepalese capital speak of a dispute at a royal dinner late on Friday night to discuss 29-year-old Crown Prince Dipendra's marriage.
The Nepalnews.com website quoted sources close to the royal family, as saying that Prince Dipendra appeared inebriated at the dinner and was told to go and lie down.
He left and reportedly returned with two automatic rifles and sprayed the room with bullets.
He left again to go and dress up in military fatigues.
When he was confronted by palace officials, he is said to shot himself in the temple.
Choice of bride
Another report quotes an unnamed military spokesman as saying an argument arose because his mother, Queen Aishwarya, had objected to his choice of bride.
The prince reportedly wished to marry the daughter of a former government minister.
It is not clear if his mother wanted him to marry someone else - or what his father thought about his choice.
It was a long-standing dispute which the public knew about, according to Kunda Dixit of the Nepali Times. But he said: "No one ever ever believed it would come to this if indeed it is true that it was over this (issue)."
The Crown Prince may well have been under considerable pressure to abandon or delay his marriage plans.
As the 29-year-old Dipendra remained on life support in a hospital, his uncle, Gyanendra, who is little known among Nepalis, was acting king.
Gyanendra, in Nepal's first official comment on the incident, described the killing of King Birendra and other members of the royal family as an accident on Sunday and the government urged the stunned nation to remain calm, pending further information.
``According to the information received by us (they) were seriously injured in an accidental firing from an automatic weapon,'' Gyanendra said in a statement, as the impoverished nation struggled to come to terms with the bloody incident.
The statement, which did not make clear who was holding the gun at the time of the incident, said that those who died had been rushed to a military hospital but could not be saved.
Prince Gyanendra, the dead king's younger brother, was away from the city at the time of the shootings.
On Saturday, Home (Interior) Minister Ram Chandra Poudel said that the 29-year-old crown prince had shot King Birendra, Queen Aishwarya, his sister Princess Shruti, 24, his brother Prince Nirajan, 22, and other royals after a family quarrel late on Friday and then turned the gun on himself.
Poudel later said it was not clear just how the royals died.
In keeping with a Hindu tradition of swift cremation, the bodies of the dead were cremated on Saturday.
Stability
The killings were the latest blow to hit the impoverished nation of 22 million people that has been racked by political instability and a growing Maoist rebellion.
Analysts say the incident could have a major impact on stability in Nepal where Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala has come under heavy pressure to quit over corruption allegations and has faced violent street protests against his rule.
Some protesters hurled stones at police on Saturday, accusing the government of being behind the slayings. Along the funeral route cries of ``Girija resign'' were heard.
Birendra ceded absolute power in favor of a British-style constitutional monarchy in 1990, but wielded huge informal clout.
Despite his largely ceremonial function, analysts say the ''gentle king,'' as he was known, was a stabilizing figure during Nepal's troubled first decade as a democracy.
``I never believed this could happen,'' said an elderly man. ''It was the king who protected us from all the unrest in our country. What will happen to our country?''
The bodies of the 55-year-old king and 51-year-old queen along with the rest of the family were cremated on the banks of the holy Bagmati river on Saturday.
Tearful farewell
Tens of thousands of people thronged the streets of the Nepalese capital on Saturday to take part in the funeral of King Birendra.
A sea of humanity lined the streets to bid a tearful and emotional farewell to one of Nepal's most popular monarchs.
People from all walks of life and of all ages took part.
Many of them have shaved their heads and left the salt out of their food in a traditional Hindu sign of mourning for close relatives.
The government has announced 13 days of mourning during which flags will fly at half mast. Government offices will remain closed for five days. The state-run radio, television and private ratio stations have all cancelled entertainment programmes.
A student in the capital seemed to sum up the national mood when he said: "It is very sad that the king and queen have passed away. We cannot quite believe what has happened."
World reaction
Nepal's southern neighbour India has declared three days of national mourning after 11 members of Nepal's royal family were killed by the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Dipendra. Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh said "the government and people of India are stunned and deeply shocked".
The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has also issued an appeal for calm.
Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke of a "dreadful tragedy". "The royal family of Nepal have many ties with this country," Mr Blair said. "Through the Gurkhas we have a particular respect and affinity for the people of Nepal and I think it is only right to express our deep sympathy and condolences to them over what has happened."
Nepal's monarch of change
King Birendra will go down in history as a monarch who led Nepal through changing political times.
He ascended to the throne in 1972, just two years after marriage, as a result of the sudden death of his father, King Mahendra.
He inherited a political system in which the king held considerable autocratic powers and political parties were banned.
But by the 1980s, the restraints imposed on political organisations were starting to ease and liberal student-led groups were starting to spring up demanding constitutional change in Nepal.
The turning point came in November 1990, when as a result of this growing popular pressure, King Birendra agreed to reduce the powers of the monarchy dramatically.
He remained the country's head of state, but handed over executive power to a council of ministers headed by the prime minister.
International education
Born in Kathmandu in 1945, King Birendra was the first of Nepal's monarchs to get a formal education.
After eight years at a Jesuit school in Darjeeling, India, he attended England's prestigious Eton College between 1959 and 1964.
Whilst there he was given the nickname "Nipple" by contemporaries.
The king continued his international education by studying at the University of Tokyo and spent a year at Harvard where he studied political theory.
Common touch
A soft-spoken man with glasses and a moustache, King Birendra was 10th in his line to rule Nepal and considered by some to be an incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu.
On formal occasions, the king was known for stilted speeches full of jargon that did not generate much inspiration.
He was more at ease and best liked for listening closely to the problems of common people, especially poor villagers in a country that is among the poorest in the world with the high unemployment and low literacy.
Dressed in the traditional short coat worn over loose trousers and a black Nepali cap, the soft-spoken king was a familiar figure to the people of his country.
He loved to fly, and whenever he could get away from his palace duties would pilot a helicopter to remote villages.
There he listened to people's problems and directed officials to find solutions.
In recent years, both King Birendra and Queen Aiswarya had focused on development projects, trying to improve Nepal's difficult economic situation.
But the country's image has consistently been tarnished by violence involving an armed struggle by self-proclaimed Maoist groups who were demanding an end to the constitutional monarchy and the setting up of a Communist republic.
Dipendra: Gentle man who went beserk
The killings have shocked the people of Kathmandu.
There had been few outward signs of internal divisions in the royal family, and no suggestion that there was any kind of a rift between King Birendra and his son, Crown Prince Dipendra, before the palace massacre on Friday.
The prince, who had previously been held in high regard, had given no sign that he was capable of killing his mother and father.
He did have an interest in guns and hunting and was a karate black belt - but those who knew him described him as an amiable and gentle man.
Attended Eton
Born in 1971, he was educated in Nepal and later at Eton, the top private school in the UK which is often first choice for the sons and daughters of world leaders.
He was a very popular boy and was also liked by all his teachers
Eton headteacher
Prince Dipendra once said his schooling there had given him a sense of "fair play and discipline".
On Saturday the Provost of Eton, Eric Anderson, said Dipendra was remembered as a "great student. "Those who knew him at the college are deeply shocked by what has happened."
Dipendra was said to be interested in guns.
The only blemish on his record prior to the murders were allegations that he drank heavily while at Eton.
He was declared heir-apparent in 1972 and in 1990 made colonel-in-chief of the Royal Nepal Army.
Ceremonial duties
He was largely restricted to performing ceremonial roles - meeting foreign dignitaries and inaugurating conferences.
But he did take on responsibility when his father made visits abroad.
Recently, the prince was seen attending parliament for the first time in what was considered to be an effort to familiarise himself with the workings of the Nepalese constitution.
His hobbies are reported to include flying helicopters, swimming, squash, listening to Nepali folk songs and modern and classical western music and reading poetry.
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