NATIONAL 1 (Spotlight Weekly)]

Tremors Of Tragedy

No royal family in the world has faced such a tragic situation like this

By KESHAB POUDEL

When the bodies of eight family members of late King Birendra were cremated at Pashupati Nath Temple on June 2, shock and panic gripped the air. After the last rites were performed, the curtain fell on a chapter of history.

A crowd before the palace : Grief-stricken

The sight of the five bodies that were laid on the pyres at Pashupati Aryaghat drove people to tears. King Rana Bahadur Shah was beheaded by his brother Sher Bahadur Shaha. Since then, no Nepalese monarch had died in such circumstances.

The closest parallel in modern world history is the deaths of the Romanovs, Russia’s former imperial family, at the hands of the Bolsheviks in the city of Yekaterinburg on July 16, 1918. Those killings occurred several months after Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate in favor of a provisional government that the Bolsheviks overthrew.

According to an official statement, a shootout broke out unexpectedly on Friday, June 1 at 9:15pm. Until the time of writing this story, 10 royal family members were already cremated. King Birendra, Queen Aishwarya, Prince Nirajan, Princess Sruti, Princesses Shanti Singh, Sarada Shaha, Jayanti Shaha and Kumar Khadga Bikram Shaha died instantly and were cremated on June 2.

Crown Prince Dipendra — subsequently declared the king — was pronounced dead on June 4 and cremated the same evening. Former prince Dhirendra, the youngest brother of King Birendra, too, was declared dead on June 4.

Newly declared queen Komal Rajya Laxmi Devi Shah and Princess Shobha, King Birendra’s youngest sister, who were injured in the incident, are said to be out of danger. The condition of Kumar Gorakh, husband of Princess Sruti, has stabilized and royal relative Kartike is said to be in similar condition.

King Gyanendra has already constituted a three-member high-level commission to investigate the incident that took place on the night of June 1, 2001. Nevertheless, the country has been gripped by a series of speculations.

Although reports that Crown Prince Dipendra opened fire on has family members over a dispute concerning his wedding plans remain in the realm of speculation, Western and Indian media are still making efforts to present this make-believe story as reality.

First reports about the incident came out quoting an unidentified "source" of the royal palace. At a time when no one in the room was in a condition to disclose what had happened, the decision by responsible media organizations to go ahead with unidentified sources was itself mysterious.

Media coverage is so overloaded with this speculation that people around the world are starting to believe it. Even the local media have been making efforts to prove that Crown Prince Dipendra’s affair with a woman belonging to the Rana family was responsible for the shootout.

Whatever the circumstances surrounding the deaths at the royal palace on the night of June 1, 2001, the chilling incident will remain etched in memory as one of the most tragic moments of Nepalese history.