| Dumdum |
Posted
on 12-Jun-01 01:53 AM
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While the massacre of King Birendra’s family sent shock waves around the world last Friday, the aftermath is fast turning into a juicy international soap opera as titillating new “facts” come to light every day.
Was Crown Prince Dipendra really seeing two women simultaneously? Was he a cocaine addict? Was he secretly married to Devyani Rana?
Sources close to the erstwhile Nepal royal family are anguished at the portrayal of the Crown Prince as a trigger-happy cocaine addict and spoke to indya.com on conditions of anonymity.
“They’re putting out the cocaine story now to discredit Prince Dipendra but the truth is he was the one royal who did not do hard drugs. Far from being a cocaine junkie, he used to talk to his siblings about drug abuse. He was raised to be crown prince; from the time he was born he was taught the importance of doing the right thing. As next in line to the throne, he was much more sober than many in his group.”
Indeed, the picture now emerging of the rowdy young royals of Nepal portrays a life of such excess, it would make a sailor blush.
True, Dipendra did drink and was known to get drunk on occasion. Those who know him say he was increasingly frustrated by the brakes put on his personal life and his professional responsibilities by Queen Aishwarya.
“But if he was intoxicated, he would always make it a point to tell his ADC to take him to his room. He was so aware of his position he didn’t want to look silly in front of others.”
This was no acidhead with an attitude problem, they say. He was a sensitive man with a poetic soul - even if the only poem released to the press to date is Soldier with its icy foreboding of death. Pure coincidence?
In fact, Dipendra say his friends, was a loving and devoted son and it was his desire to marry Devyani Rana with his parent’s approval that kept him waiting for 10 long years.
Why did this Oxford-educated Prince not renounce his claim to the throne and marry Devyani secretly as some reports now claim? “Because, he wanted to do the right thing. Despite what the media says, he did not marry Devyani clandestinely,” insists the friend hinting that the truth may come out after the commission of inquiry gives its report.
True, Queen Aishwarya had suggested Supriya Shah for a bride but Dipendra was not seriously interested in her.
“The story is being put out now because she (Supriya) is feeling spurned and they want to discredit Devyani. Supriya was always calling Dipendra on the phone.... But Dipendra remained devoted to Devyani and he was waiting to marry her with the full approval of his parents,” says his friend.
“You have to understand that he was a real patriot who felt very strongly for his country. To him abdicating the throne to marry the woman he loved was selfish. It would be abdicating the responsibility he had been groomed to shoulder from birth.”
His people, in return, are finding it hard to believe he could do something so macabre. If the inquiry commission does disclose Dipendra had chemicals in his blood at the time of his death and that he was responsible for the killings as seems likely, the question to ask is: what made him pull the trigger?
“What conversation took place between him and Paras when they were up in his room? What incited him to come down and start shooting?” asks his friend.
As for the eyewitness account released by Rajiv Shahi, it has raised more questions than it answers. For instance, Shahi says Dipendra went in and out of the room four times while shooting his family member.
Why did no one alert the guards? How come he walked around the palace freely with his guns blazing? Shahi has since disappeared from public view but his account has not endeared him to the army which wishes to court martial him or the inquiry commission which has objected to the account being made public before the commission could complete its investigation.
Some see this as a ham–handed attempt by the palace which has only served to add fuel to the conspiracy theories. The truth about what really happened might never be known.
Did Dipendra return in his fatigues with the intention of wiping out his family or was he merely trying to make a point when he first shot blankly first at the ceiling?
Was this a spur of the moment madness or a well thought out plan – did he deliberately get intoxicated so he could do the deed?
As the people of Nepal wait and watch, the storm gathering around the monarchy bodes ill for the new King.
He will have to be a lot more deft to deflect the anti-royalist forces gathering around him. To many, the excesses of the royal court are a measure of how far the monarchy had moved from the real interests of the poverty stricken people of Nepal.
Their suffering is likely to get worse before things get better. «
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