KATMANDU, Nepal, June 7 -- An eyewitness and survivor of last Friday's bloodbath at Katmandu's Narayanhity Palace on Thursday claimed an inebriated Crown Prince Dipendra had massacred royal family members, including his father, King Birendra and mother, Queen Aishwariya.
In the first eyewitness account of the gruesome killing that wiped out the entire King Birendra family, Rajiv Shahi, a military doctor and son-in-law of the late king's youngest brother Dhirendra, said at a hurriedly called news conference that Crown Prince Dipendra single-handedly mowed down the royal family.
But his account has glaring loopholes.
Shahi claimed he was also shot while trying to save King Birendra from the volley of shots fired by Crown Prince Dipendra from an automatic weapon.
"At around 9 o' clock, I heard gunfire, it was automatic. I thought it was somebody playing a prank. There was chaos and all of a sudden I heard people say that the late majesty King Birendra was shot. Being a doctor, I rushed to the place, picked up my coat and pressed against his neck because that was the place he was bleeding. The late majesty also told me that he had been shot in the stomach as well and I told him not to worry because stopping the bleeding was important at that time. After shooting, the then-Crown Prince Dipendra went out," Shahi testified before reporters.
"I am not sure how many weapons he had. It was too fast and too terrific and happened in a span of one-and-a-half minutes," he told the reporters at the military hospital where some of the royals were recovering from injuries.
Since journalists were not allowed to ask the survivor any questions at the news conference, Shahi's account left many unanswered issues. For example, how was Shahi injured in the attack since he had heard gunshots and ran to attend to the wounded King Birendra?
He did not say what the security guards or the ADC to the late king were doing when the crown prince mowed down his family. The king's security guards are an elite force of commandoes charged with protecting him.
Shahi said Crown Prince Dipendra was drunk and had collapsed several times in between his shooting spree. It remains unanswered as to why no one present in that dining hall could overpower a drunken shooter.
Shahi did not say what provoked Dipendra to shoot his family. "I do not know what his (Crown Prince Dipendra's) motive was, but he was just a murderer," Shahi said.
Shahi said that without the intervention of Paras Shah, the only son of the now King Gyanendra, the toll would have been much higher. But he did not corroborate how Paras Shah helped in saving the lives of some of the royal family members.
Shahi said he asked the ADCs to call the ambulances.
"This is a damage control exercise by King Gyanendra," Sapna Joshi, a resident of Katmandu, said.
"What were ADCs of the king doing when he was being shot at?" she asked.
Shahi said his father-in-law and youngest brother of King Birendra, Dhirendra, was among the first to be shot at point-blank range when he attempted to stop Dipendra.
Earlier reports from the hospital on Saturday had said that Dhirendra suffered a gun wound and his condition was improving. However, Dhirendra was declared dead Monday night. Interestingly, Dhirendra is a black-belt holder in karate. How could he fail to stop a drunken nephew who was stuttering and collapsing?
Shahi was whisked away from the news conference where he testified before selected newsmen.
Earlier, The Washington Post and The Times of London published a similar version of the relative of a survivor. That account, too, has loopholes.
The relative's version said Dipendra sprayed bullets for 15 minutes in a drunken condition. But people of Nepal wonder how is it possible for a drunken man to keep the royal palace amok for 15 minutes with scores of elite security men present there?
Shahi had said that the massacre was over in one and half minutes while the relative of a royal survivor described the duration of the bloodbath as 15 minutes.
The Post and The Times reported that after shooting his family, Dipendra shot himself in the head with a pistol. The entry wound, according to a source close to a doctor who attended to the late king, was on Dipendra's left temple.
The Indian daily The Hindustan Times said what no one has asked so far is, why would the right-handed crown prince try to commit the final act of his life with his left hand?
There is no convincing answer as to how members of King Birendra's family were the only victims while members of King Gyanendra's family all survived virtually without so much as a scratch.
Although the bloodstains in the Narayanhity Palace have been washed clean by now, messy doubts about last Friday's massacre remain.
A high-level panel set up by Gyanendra to investigate the bloodbath has begun its work.
Nepal, a landlocked Himalayan kingdom, is sandwiched between the two giant rivals, India and China. The country was an absolute monarchy until 1990 when Birendra ceded power after violent street protests. Since then, Nepal, the world's only Hindu country, followed a British-style constitutional monarchy. The king remained powerful, however. Believed by some to be an incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, he was especially strong within the country's military.
