Kathmandu, June 6: Local authorities again announced a relaxed six-hour curfew in the capital and neighbouring Lalitpur for six hours beginning 9 PM Wednesday. For the first time in three days some form of normalcy had returned to the capital Wednesday morning and afternoon after relaxing a 12-hour curfew following two days of violence that followed a carnage at the Naryanhiti Royal Palace Friday killing or injuring 14 members of the Royal family and immediate relatives.
King Birendra, Queen Aishwarya and uncrowned King Dipendra were among those killed. Some shops reopened and vehicles were plying the streets past gun toting police who appeared relaxed as they chatted with passers-by amid lowered tension Wednesday. Authorities slapped a curfew in the capital and neighbouring Lalitpur to quell a two-day violence that killed at least four persons, including policemen, and injured several dozen others Monday and Tuesday.
Crown Prince Dipendra, declared King after the assassination of his father King Birendra, started the shoot-out, witnesses and relatives said Wednesday. A senior person who preferred anonymity, and survived with minor injuries, also said Dipendra started the carnage during a family gathering Friday evening at a bungalow inside the palace complex where he resided independently.
This senior person was among a dozen survivors of the shoot-out; others who survived without injuries are Prince Paras and his sister, children of King Gyanendra, and three daughters and a son-in-law of Dhirendra Shah, the youngest brother of the new King, reports said.
A Commission appointed by King Gyanendra to investigate and report on the carnage met informally for 10 hours Tuesday and Wednesday at the home of Chief Justice and Chief of the investigation Keshab Prasad Upadhaya after a communist member raised procedural question on its formation Tuesday and walked out, a member said Wednesday.
“We are waiting for the terms of reference of the Commission and formal work will begin after we receive it. We did not receive the name of the third person till noon today and it will have to come from the King,” Speaker of the House of Representatives Tananath Ranabhatt, a Commission member, told the National News Agency. Leader of the main opposition Madav Nepal did not participate in the meeting Wednesday arguing on a technicality that Commission members should have been appointed by the government and not the King; but Nepal said his party will send another representative to the inquiry body. The party has not named a new representative as yet.