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COVER STORY: KING BIRENDERA'S MURDER
Devastating Cocktail
By
8 p.m., when Dipendra finally showed up, his parents, sister, brother
and aunts had made themselves comfortable in his sitting room. The lesser
royals were gathered in an adjacent room as etiquette demanded that they
not smoke or drink in the king's presence. As Captain Rajiv Shahi, husband
of Dhirendra's daughter Puja and the first royal to break the family's
silence on the Friday night massacre, recalled, "The crown prince
was intoxicated. He was falling down and was slurring. Nirajan, Paras
(Gyanendra's son) and I escorted him to his private room."
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| ONE WHO GOT AWAY: Gorakh Shamsher Rana (hands folded),
husband of Princess Shruti, escaped death on June 1 and will be a
key witness for the inquiry commission |
Queen Aishwarya, a formidable person in her own
right, wasn't amused. According to an eyewitness, she upbraided her son
and blamed the "evil influence" of "that woman". The
disparaging reference was to 32-year-old Devyani Rana (see box), the woman
Dipendra wanted to marry but whom his parents didn't approve of.
The queen's forthright displeasure prompted
an intemperate response from Dipendra. Despite being economical with details
of a family shame, palace circles insist the crown prince slurred and
swore at his mother. A hushed silence followed, broken by the king asking
in an uncharacteristically raised voice for the two ADCs of the crown
prince, Major Gajendra Bohra and Major Raju Karki. Going by Shahi's version,
family members escorted Dipendra to his room.
On entering his bedroom, Dipendra bolted it from
inside. Later investigations revealed he downed half-a-bottle of Scotch
and smoked a couple of marijuana joints. The whisky bottle was found open
on a table and the ash-tray was heaped with reefer butts. The crown prince
was in a serious state of agitation. He proceeded to smash a framed photograph
of Devyani and pieces of valuable crystal and china. There are reports
that his cell phone showed Devyani's mobile number on the list of outgoing
calls during the period. Anger, love, alcohol and marijuana made a devastating
cocktail.
At 9 p.m. Dipendra walked down the staircase.
He was in his normal Nepali dress-though street-corner gossip later insisted
he had changed into battle fatigues-with a pointed "dhaka" cap.
As he entered the anteroom, the group assembled there was aghast to find
him holding a loaded assault rifle. Those who saw him enter included Prince
Paras, Princess Puja, Shahi, General (retd) Ravi Shamsher Rana (seniormost
member of the royal family and son of King Tribhuvan's daughter) and Mahesh
Kumar Singh, the Indian-born businessman-husband of Queen Mother Ratna's
sister.
In the hierarchical world of the palace, nobody
would dare to stop the crown prince even if he seemed completely out of
his mind. Eyewitnesses say they were stunned into making way for him.
All except Paras, an equally hot-headed young man who reportedly tried
to block Dipendra's way. But Dipendra brushed him aside, some say with
the bark "Get out", and entered the sitting room. The clock
on the wall said five past nine.
The king was on a sofa, nursing his favourite
Cognac. The queen was on an adjoining sofa. Strains of Nepali music were
emanating from the radio, kept switched on as the king preferred not to
miss news bulletins. Dinner was to be served on a table at the farthest
corner of the room, where there was a bar and a snooker table. It was
a buffet arrangement.
Dipendra entered the room with the weapon facing
upwards. Shahi remembers when he heard the burst of gunfire he thought
it was a prank "until someone came to me and said the king had been
shot". Without a word, Dipendra emptied the first magazine on a corner
of the ceiling. The shells ricocheted onto the royals below. After shooting
the first round, Shahi says, Dipendra bolted out of the room. He must
have run up the stairs to his room, though Shahi does not explain his
exit route. King Birendra was by then bleeding in the neck. Shahi says
he took off his coat and put it on the wound to stem the bleeding. Birendra
told him he had been hit in the stomach too. "Don't worry, we're
taking you to hospital," Shahi reassured him.
However, Dipendra returned in a few moments,
armed this time with a Heckler & Koch assault rifle. With a 5.56 mm
round, it is an ideal weapon for firing at close quarters. Dhirendra tried
to disarm the prince and got shot in the chest. Then Dipendra got wild
and started shooting indiscriminately. The spray cut down aunts Sharda
and Shanti, Birendra's cousin Jayanti and Sharda's husband Kumar Khadga.
By then Princess Shruti had come to her injured
father and had rested his head on her lap. Dipendra fired at them point-blank
until they were riddled with bullets. Then he drew another arc with the
gun blazing, pumping more bullets into everyone who survived.
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