Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Massacre of the royal family of Nepal

If Nepal’s royal family is to be believed, 30-year-old Dipendra, the then crown prince, had in one cruel stroke eliminated the king, the queen, his younger brother and at least seven other members of his own family. Everyone who knew Dipendra said he was a gentleman and a modernist; a man who wanted to make the monarchy and the palace more progressive; a man who was always smiling. How could he have suddenly turned into a trigger happy monster? On Reality Bites, Barkha Dutt captures the mood in Nepal, a country shocked, shaken and in turmoil in the wake of the royal massacre.

Few dramas can match what happened at Nepal’s Narayanhity Palace on the first night of June, 2001, when gunshots rang out, leaving most of the royal family dead.Crown Prince Dipendra shot and killed nine members his family and himself. His parents apparently objected to his plans to marry local aristocrat Devyani Rana.

They had reportedly threatened to disinherit him if he did so, and there has been speculation that this conflict between love and duty is what caused his rampage. Rana reportedly comes from a lower clan of nobility in India, and her great-grandmother was also said once to have been a mistress to a member of the Nepalese royal family.

The public rioted for several days after the massacre, incredulous that the carefree prince once known as “Dippy” could be responsible for the violence. There was also speculation that the slain king’s unpopular brother Gyanendra, who is now Nepal’s monarch, was responsible for the tragedy.

New reports have also emerged ultimately blaming Devyani. They say to placate his parents, Dipendra had agreed to their plan for him to marry another girlfriend and keep Devyani as a mistress. But Devyani reportedly rejected that plan.Devyani is now in hiding in Europe, and refusing to come home. Without her presence, many questions remain unanswered.