Page 30 - All About History - Issue 18-14

Eye Witness

ROYAL MASSACRE

Timeline of “ The warning had already gone out that any

events curfew violators would be shot”

CST
O The prince arrives
7.30pm silence around the television; the royal family had River. At the gates of the palace, people lit incense,
CrownPrinceDipendraShah
1 June
arrives at the palace for the been slaughtered. Considering the raft of conspiracy deposited flowers and signed books of condolences.
biweekly family gathering. He theories that would soon percolate through Kathmandu, A handful of foreign television journalists fretted over
retires to the billiards room and
downstwoshotsofwhisky. the initial news was brutally succinct. Crown Prince their equipment on the flower-stacked roundabout at
Dipendra, armed with an M-16 rifle, Hechler and Koch the end of the Dhurbar Marg boulevard. As I snapped
O Dipendra leaves to pick
8.00pm MP-5 and Franchi combat rifle, had gunned down his pictures of the crowds, one old man stood up and began
up the queen mother
with whom he has a fond parents, younger brother and sister, aunts and uncles. loudly berating me. The men around him just laughed
relationship. After delivering The argument that had sparked the massacre had and made twirling motions with their fingers around
hertothepalace,hereturns apparently centred on Dipendra’s choice of future their temples to indicate that he was crazy.
to the billiards room.
bride, Devyani Rana. He had first met her in England At 5pm, ceremonial Royal Nepalese Army (RNA)
O Dipendra leaves
8.12pm in 1989 and, as an heir to the Rana dynasty, Devyani’s cavalry clip-clopped on horseback onto the boulevard.
According to later records, the
princetalkstohisloverDevyani ancestors had been loyal subjects of the British Raj I scanned the crowds who had assembled outside the
Rana at this time over the phone and owned lands in India larger than France. But shuttered sprawl of cafés and gift shops. The occasional
foraroundaminute.
the Rana and Shah dynasties had been rivals for the western backpacker beheld the drama with bafflement.
O An intoxicated Dipendra Nepalese throne for generations and his parents strongly The evening was lengthening the shadows as police
8.19pm
demandsthatanaidebrings disapproved of their romance. Dipendra was in a coma, vans crawled past the crowds. And then, accompanied
him special, marijuana-laced
cigarettes. His brother and having apparently shot himself in the head but, should by wails and chants, came the dead royals.
cousin escort him to bed. he recover, a terrible legal conundrum would arise. I struggled with my own camera amid the flashes
Murdering his royal relatives made Dipendra guilty of of nearly everyone else’s; the palanquins containing
O Devyani Rana calls the
8.25pm
prince’s aides, after noting his treason, but the constitution put the monarch above the each corpse were borne atop poles by Hindu priests in
slurred talk. She urges them law. Would Nepal be ruled by a homicidal monarch who white vests and loin cloths. I saw that the face of Queen
to check on the prince.
was exempt from prosecution? Aishwarya had been replaced by a china mask – most
O Two orderlies reach his room
8.30pm I walked up to the outskirts of the Narayanhity Palace of it had been blown off by her son. All through the
and find him sprawled on the
floor. Dipendra rises and goes where thousands of Nepalese, sari-clad women with evening the television screens displayed the Shah royals’
to the bathroom, apparently red ash on their foreheads and men with knit caps, fiery send-off at the Sri Pashupatinath temple. The
throwing up.
were already congregating on the 13-kilometre (eight- following day was Sunday, the calm before the storm.
O Finalcallforlovers mile) route that linked the military hospital with Sri King Dipendra remained in a vegetative state.
8.39pm
HetalkstoDevanyiforthelast Pashupatinath, a Hindu shrine where the slain royalty On Monday morning I went to the suburb of Lalitpur,
time. Meanwhile, the royalty is
assembling in the dining hall. would be cremated, their ashes cast into the Bagmati intending to meet members of another anti-trafficking
O Theprince,nowdonning
8.50pm
army fatigues, collects
weaponry from his large
private collection of guns and
assault rifles.
O The massacre
8.51pm
Dipendra returns to the billiards
roomandfiresintotheceiling.He
leaves, re-enters and shoots one
of his aunts. The king and two of
hisunclesarethenshotdead.
O Dipendramovesbacktothe
8.53pm
door,shootingdeadhissister
Princess Shruti and wounding
her husband. Three others are
also shot dead.
O He pursues Prince Nirajan and
8.55pm
hismotherintothepalace
inner garden, shoots both of
themandcrossesabridge
over a garden pond.
O When security staff arrive, he
9.10pm
isfoundlyingonthebridge
withagunshot tothehead.A
9mmGlockpistolandanM-16
rifle are discovered nearby.
O Dipendraistakentothe
9.24pm
military hospital.
O Official mourning
5.57pm
The bodies of the dead royalty are
2 June
taken to the Sri Pashupathinath
Hindu temple for cremation.
Dipendra remains comatose and is Nepalese police attempt to impose order
later taken off life support. less than 24 hours after the massacre
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