#47 15 - 21 June 2001 16 pages Rs 20 IT WAS DIPENDRA. Probe team finds smoking gun. ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ KIRAN○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ NEPAL raucous press conference at the parliament He returned to spray the survivors once inally, it is official: Dipendra did it. Two secretariat. Rifles, magazines, cartridges, boots more, killing his sister Sruti weeks after the mass murder of Nepal’s and military fatigues were on display. Most He then backed out into the garden, eye f royal family, a high-level inquiry has details confirm early media reports about a witnesses saw a woman in a red sari (Queen concluded that Crown Prince Dipendra killed drugged and drunk prince going berserk Aishwarya) and Prince Nirajan hurriedly his father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, and with automatic weapons, mowing down following him there three aunts in cold blood before shooting family members. There were gunshots from the garden, MIN BAJRACHARYA himself. Six other members of the royal New facts emerging from the report: Queen Aishwarya’s body was found on a family, including Queen Komal, were Dipendra was intoxicated even before the landing and Nirajan’s on the lawn. Brain tissue, seriously injured in the Friday night family dinner, and was carried up to his room bits of bone and blood covered the area Presenting the probe team report, Speaker Taranath Ranabhat and Chief Justice Keshab massacre and are still in hospital. where he smoked a joint with hashish and an Dipendra was found near the bridge, still Prasad Upadhaya . Guns and a trunk with clothes in foreground. The two-member commission led by unidentified black substance alive and wheezing. Chief Justice Keshab Prasad Upadhaya and Dipendra made several calls to Devyani Most members of the royal family were all the blood reports, fingerprints or ballistic India, and heard her taped statement in which House Speaker Taranath Ranabhat presented Rana in a slurred voice, she was worried and declared dead on arrival at the Chhauni analyses were in. There were more than 60 she said details of her relationship with the findings to King Gyanendra Thursday asked his orderly to check if he was okay hospital at about 2115 on Friday night. Sruti specialists who helped in the seven-day Dipendra were a “personal matter”. evening. In a function televised nationwide, the Orderly and governess found him on the died at 2155, Dhirendra and Dipendra two investigation. An internal army probe into Security was tight in Kathmandu as the king untied the blue velvet cover of the report floor, trying to take his shirt off, he vomited days later. security is also expected. committee presented its report to King and read three pages of its summary before Soon after, Dipendra donned military When brought to hospital Dipendra was Although determining the motive was not Gyanendra. More than 1,000 leftist activists handing it over to Prime Minister Girija combat fatigues and carried a 9 mm MP-5K still wearing boots, black leather gloves and in the team’s terms of reference, several sources have been rounded up. The probe panel’s Koirala. “I am giving this report to you so that submachine gun, a 5.56 mm M-16 commando army fatigues. have confirmed that Dipendra’s decision to report is diametrically opposed to the you can undertake necessary actions according with laser targeting and a 12 bore French Many questions were left unanswered, but wed Devyani Rana, over which there was a conspiracy theory put forward by the Maoists to the constitution and prevalent laws, and to shotgun. Two 9 mm revolvers were also found, Ranabhat said many questions would be major disagreement between him and his and some left parties, who were holding mass present the facts to the citizens,” the king told one was used. answered in the 200-page report. The panel parents was the reason. They said there had meetings all week to convince the public. This Koirala. Then he thanked the Chief Justice He fired at the ceiling and the wall, then at interviewed royal survivors, eyewitnesses, been violent arguments in the past between position is nearly identical with the and the Speaker, requesting them to “take his father, King Birendra examined hospital records, lab analyses, Dipendra and his immediate family members Maoists’, whose leader Prachanda in two this report to the people immediately.” He changed guns and returned to spray his forensic evidence and mobile phone records. It over his choice of bride-to-be. statements praised King Birendra’s and said An hour later, Ranabhat presented a father with the submachine gun, killing and was not clear whether post-mortems had been The committee asked Nepal’s ambassador the killings were a conspiracy against a summary live on television and radio to a wounding family members carried out on the dead before cremation. Not to India, Bhekh Thapa to talk to Devyani in “nationalist king”. use original hp COMMENT by KUNDA DIXIT inks and paper trickling out within hours of the shooting from eyewitnesses and close relatives. But this information never got to the greater public. Indeed, until the probe panel findings came out Thursday night, no government and palace source had wo weeks after the ghastlyIf slaughter truth at Naryanhiti was what reallybe happened. told actually told Nepalis that royal family members were Palace, the findings of the probe panel have finally Citizens deprived of credible and accurate murdered. If this is what you do, can you really blame the t brought us closer to the truth. But, like a mirage, information have grown to believe more readily in a public for believing in conspiracies? the truth keeps receding the closer we get to it as an complex untruth than in a simple truth. We will not let We have to blame the Orwellian information controllers intrigue-obsessed public finds reality too hard to the truth get in the way of a juicy conspiracy theory. at the two durbars, and a politically-motivated media. swallow. They are swayed by the government media’s We insist on believing what a Bollywood actor never Anywhere else in the world, the media’s role is to find the secretiveness, the private media’s proclivity for either said, but we steadfastly refuse to believe what an heir facts that point to the truth and then look for an self-censorship or politically-inspired sensationalism, to the throne actually did. explanation, but most of our politicos and press did the and the fixation of our Panchayat-era mandarins with Post-massacre public reaction came in three opposite: we looked for a conspiracy theory that fit our information control. We are trapped by the lies. categories: political posture and cooked up the facts to fit it. Now that Always Clear Official media have been habitual liars on behalf of those who have the access to information and the truth is out, it is clear that the conspiracy theories Always Sharp the government of the day. It is a habit hard to break, contacts in high places, and know the truth were themselves a conspiracy. and 12 years of democracy has not changed that. All those who do not have access to this information, The officialdom responsible for these serious lapses we did was play doleful music, broadcast bland official and find it hard to believe the truth looked for scapegoats and found the editor and publishers pronouncements, and vacuous news bulletins that those who know the truth, but find it inconvenient, of Kantipur, and in an overreaction that smacked of carried lengthy messages from foreign heads of state. and therefore peddle conspiracy theories that suit vendetta, they locked them up. * Stay away from imitations and refills We did precious little to quash wild rumours. It took their agenda. The future is tinged with uncertainty, and the lesson Authorised Distributor: decades for our official electronic media to forfeit For the first few days after the massacre the only from this crisis is clear: restoring the credibility and trust public trust, they cannot regain it overnight. The people who knew what really happened were of our press by unshackling the state-owned media from ComputerLand Building, Ramshah Path, Kathmandu result was that when a crown prince ran amok and members of our traditionally secretive royal family and government control. We must foster a professional and Tel: 431199, 431746, 430858-9 Fax: 430641 Email: [email protected] killed his entire family there was little Nepal TV or those close to them. So the truth remained a secret, responsible press committed to pluralism and The Total Solutions Company Radio Nepal could do to convince the public that locked up in vaults of silence. Bits of facts had started independence. One day, the truth will set us free. 222 EDITORIAL 15 - 21 JUNE 2001 NEPALI TIMES Nepali Times is published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Chief Editor: Kunda Dixit Editor: Anagha Neelakantan, Design: Swosti Rajbhandari, Kiran Maharjan [email protected], www.nepalitimes.com Advertising: Sunaina Shah, Anup Adhikary [email protected] Subscription: Anil Karki [email protected] Sales: Sudan Bista, [email protected] Sanchaya Kosh Building, Block A-4th Floor, Lalitpur GPO Box 7251, Kathmandu, Nepal Tel: 01-543333-7, Fax: 01-521013 Printed at Jagadamba Press: 01-521393 KE GARDEKO? Those were the last words King Birendra spoke as he collapsed in the billiard room on Friday, 1 June. Shock, rather than pain, was writ large on his face. More than the shock of being shot, it was the shock of knowing who had just shot him. What have you done, he murmured, as he slowly slumped to the floor. Nepalis will also want an answer to that haunting question as they agonise over what happened that night.