Kathmandu, June 13: Police stopped vehicles, conducted searches of motorcyclists and other individuals Wednesday night ahead of a submission of a report by a two member probe panel investigating the June 1 carnage at the Royal Palace killing 10 members of the royal family including King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya and injuring four other relatives.
Police were stopping vehicles and conducting searches at important crossroad’s in the city late into the night. A commission headed by Chief Justice Kasha Prasad Upadhaya and consisting of Speaker of the House of Representatives Taranath Ranabhatt is to submit its detailed report to King Gyanendra Thursday on the firings that killed popular King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya.
Some are skeptical whether the report will be made public on the 11th day of the suicide of Crown Prince Dipendra, considered inauspicious by Hindus; eyewitness accounts say Dipendra started the carnage. Despite the eyewitness accounts, a surreal situation exists as some people genuinely do not want to believe that Crown Prince Dipendra started the killing spree culminating in his own suicide.
Maoists and a splinter communist group, the Smaukhya Jana Morcha, have claimed there is a conspiracy in the massacre although they have no love for the monarchy or alternate evidence to support their claim. It will take at least another 10 days for business to recover as the country reels from the impact of the tragedy, said a businessman. “There is backlog of almost 15 days to pick-up goods from the border.
I paid a trucker Rs.10,00,000 yesterday, I cannot find any pick up goods today. There is so much of demand. Retailers are not coming forward to lift goods either,” said Samin Tuladhar, a motorcycle spare part wholesaler.
“My Indian contractors have fled fearing for their lives after the curfew as I try to build a home on contract. Indians control the construction business,” said Jeevan Tuladhar. Many said the phenomenon is temporary.
The royal palace, government and the commision members will have problems trying to placate or convince trouble mongers and genuine skeptics on the results of the findings, whatever that may be.