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COVER STORY: KING BIRENDERA'S MURDER
Prince Of Death
In killing his father King Birendra and other family
members before shooting himself, a love-crazed prince exposes Nepal to
emotions it never knew and uncertainly it never wanted. The story of heavenly
love turned to hellish fury.
By Sumit Mitra and Swapan Dasgupta in Kathmandu
William Shakespeare's
Macbeth was the most evocative tale of a king being killed by his host.
But Duncan and Macbeth were king and vassal, not father and son. On Friday,
June 1, when King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev of Nepal-by local legend,
the living incarnation of Vishnu-chose Tribhuvan Sadan within Kathmandu's
Narayanhity Palace complex for the regular Friday family dinner, little
did he suspect that a convivial evening would have a grisly conclusion.
Nobody, not even the most prescient of court astrologers, had ever imagined
the two-storied, Benjamin Polk-designed bungalow would witness the bloodiest
royal massacre in recent history. A massacre that decimated an entire
line of the Shah family which has ruled for 233 years. A massacre of the
royals by a royal.
After the stillness of a lazy Kathmandu evening
was broken by a minute-long volley of fire from a heavy-duty assault rifle,
palace ambulances followed by a flurry of cars sped down Durbar Marg towards
Birendra Army Hospital, 5 km away. They carried the blood-stained corpses
of King Birendra, his wife, Queen Aishwarya Rajya Laxmi Devi Shah, daughter
Princess Shruti, younger son Prince Nirajan, royal sisters Sharda and
Shanti and Sharda's husband Khadga Bahadur Shamsher. To die later was
Dhirendra, the king's youngest brother who gave up his title in 1990 in
order to divorce his wife and marry a European.
Crown Prince Dipendra, the host for the evening,
was also rushed to the emergency ward, seemingly lifeless courtesy self-inflicted
wounds from a Heckler & Koch MP5 gun loaded with high velocity bullets.
For two days, he lay comatose. The 125-member Raj Parishad or Royal Council,
which determines succession, declared him the 12th Shah monarch on June
2-much to the bewilderment of the world. Dipendra, 29, died at 3.45 a.m.
on June 4. For 54 hours since his father's death, Nepal was nominally
ruled by a man who was not only clinically dead but guilty of regicide.
Dippy, as he was known at Eton, had always been a "damned good shot",
recalled a schoolmate.
The custom of a Friday dinner for the Shah family
was begun by King Birendra soon after his 1972 coronation. There was no
permanent venue and the hosts were selected by turn. The previous Friday
the family had met at Mahendra Manzil (see graphic), the residence of
Queen Mother Ratna Devi-Birendra's stepmother and the second wife of his
father, King Mahendra. On occasions the king hosted the dinner in his
own palace residence, Sri Sadan. At times the royals gathered outside
the palace complex-at the house of Shruti and her husband Gorakh Shamsher
Rana in touristy Thamel; or Prince Gyanendra's residence in Maharajgunj.
For the fateful June 1 dinner, it was Dipendra's turn to play host.
The crown prince, however, was not at his hospitable
best. He was not even present in Tribhuvan Sadan to receive the king,
who, earlier that evening had met the editor of a local weekly, spent
a considerable time with the family priest and visited the Queen Mother
before walking to his son's official residence at 7 p.m. Dipendra's absence
was noticed. To not receive the king was a violation of protocol.
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