On June 1, 2001, Dipendra murdered nine members of the Nepalese royal family, including his parents and siblings, before dying by suicide.
Wikimedia CommonsCrown Prince Dipendra of Nepal shot and killed multiple members of the royal family.
June 1, 2001 is an infamous date in the history of Nepal. During a party on the grounds of the Narayanhiti Royal Palace that night, 29-year-old Crown Prince Dipendra shot and killed his mother, father, and seven other members of the royal family, before shooting himself in the head.
With the king dead, the crown fell to Dipendra, who survived for a few days in a coma before dying on June 4. For this reason, he’s known as Nepal’s “Ghost King.” And with his death, Dipendra’s uncle, Gyanendra, took power.
So why did Dipendra murder his entire family? This is the strange story of the Nepalese royal massacre, from the mystery surrounding Dipendra’s motives to the fate of the Nepalese monarchy itself.
The Royal Upbringing Of Crown Prince Dipendra
Dipendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev was born on June 27, 1971. The first son of King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya, Dipendra was the crown prince and next in line to the Nepalese throne. As such, he enjoyed a privileged upbringing.
Wikimedia CommonsThe then-Prime Minister of Nepal carrying Prince Dipendra.
After attending school in Nepal, Dipendra later attended Eton College in the United Kingdom. He then earned a PhD at Tribhuvan University in Nepal, and also received military training from the Academy of Royal Nepalese Gurkha Army, as well as pilot training from the Civil Aviation Department.
Out of school, the crown prince also enjoyed sports, guns, and parties, and showing off the trappings of his royal lifestyle. When Princess Diana visited Nepal in 1993, for example, Dipendra closed the roads so that they could cruise around Kathmandu at night in his sports car.
But the crown prince had a darker side as well.
“He was kind of a dual character. Outside, he was very much gentle, very much liked by everyone,” Lt. Gen. Vivek Kumar Shah, an aide-de-camp at the royal palace for 26 years, remarked to The World in 2013. “But inside, from the beginning — probably, he didn’t get the love he should have as a child. That’s what my belief is. He had a kind of sadistic nature. He would burn a cat or a mouse. He would enjoy that.”
Wikimedia CommonsPrince Dipendra meets with the President of India in 1994.
What’s more, Dipendra was unhappy with how the monarchy in Nepal was changing. In the 1990s, Dipendra’s father, King Birendra, agreed to transition from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy in response to the 1990 People’s Movement uprising.
Dipendra was upset with this change. He allegedly broke a door when he heard the news.
“If you remember, King Birendra was educated in the West, in Japan,” Kunda Dixit, publisher of the Nepali Times explained to The World. “He believed in a constitutional role for the monarchy, not a dictatorship. But his brother [Gyanendra], who later became king, and his own son, the Crown Prince, totally disagreed. They felt the country was going to the dogs, [that] he gave too much away in the 1990 People Power uprising.”
The crown prince was unhappy, but no one predicted what came next.
The 2001 Nepalese Royal Massacre
Wikimedia CommonsThe Narayanhiti Royal Palace, which is now a museum.
Nepalese royal massacre took place on June 1, 2001. That night, there was a private family party held at the Narayanhiti Royal Palace in Kathmandu.
According to reporting from Time in 2001, some witnesses remember that Dipendra was so drunk he had to be escorted to his room about 45 minutes after the party began. Others, however, recall that Dipendra was sober enough to pour drinks. The New York Times additionally reported in 2001 that a government inquest into the massacre found that Dipendra was not only drunk on whiskey, but high on “a special kind of cigarette prepared with a mixture of hashish and another unnamed black substance.”
In any case, Dipendra left the party early. When he returned, he was dressed in army fatigues and carrying several weapons. And he went straight into one of the palace’s drawing rooms, where King Birendra was sitting with others.
Before his father could react, Dipendra opened fire.
“Dipendra just looked at his father. He said nothing and squeezed the trigger once,” Ravi Shumshere Rana, Dipendra’s uncle, recalled according to Time. “The King stood there for a few seconds after the firing and then slowly he sat down on the ground. It was about this time that the King finally spoke. Kay gardeko? (What have you done?)”
Wikimedia CommonsKing Birendra with Ronald Reagan at the White House in the 1980s.
The crown prince gave no answer. Instead, he stalked throughout the party, opening fire on his family. When Dipendra’s brother, Prince Nirajan, stood in front of their mother, Queen Aishwarya, Dipendra shot them both. When his sister, Princess Shruti, bent over her injured husband, he shot her. Dipendra moved methodically, ultimately killing nine members of the royal family.
“At this point he went wild and started shooting whoever came in front of him,” Dr. Rajiv Shahi, the son-in-law of the youngest brother of the slain King Birendra, recalled to The New York Times. “How many weapons he used, I’m not sure. I didn’t count. It was too fast.”
Within just a matter of minutes, the massacre was over. The the crown prince made his way to a nearby footbridge, and shot himself in the head.
Why Did Dipendra Kill His Family?
At the end of the Nepalese royal massacre, Dipendra had killed his parents, the king and queen, his younger siblings, and five other members of the royal family. The crown automatically passed to him, but Dipendra fell into a coma after shooting himself in the head. He was a “Ghost King” for three days, before he died from his wounds on June 4, 2001, at the age of 29.
So, why did he do it?
Gaurav Dhwaj Khadka/Wikimedia CommonsA statue of King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya.
There’s been plenty of speculation over the years as to the possible motive for Dipendra’s violent actions on that fateful night, but no sure answers. However, there are two prevailing theories.
The first theory is that Dipendra was furious with the decision his father had made to transition from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional one. The second is that Dipendra was in love with a woman he couldn’t marry.
Dipendra had crossed paths with, woman, Devyani Rana, while studying in England. But his family objected to the match both because of Rana’s mother’s social caste, and because of her father’s political alliances. Rana’s family also had doubts about the match, since their family was wealthier, and Rana had grown up accustomed to a certain lifestyle.
On the night of the Nepal royal massacre, Dipendra even called Rana multiple times. She recalled that his speech was so slurred that she asked one of his aides to check on him. But in their last conversation, Dipendra offered no hint of the coming violence. Apparently, he only told her that he was going to bed before he hung up the phone for the final time.
Krish Dulal/Wikimedia CommonsDevyani Rana in 2013.
That said, some even believe that Dipendra is innocent. They point to oddities in the case, including that Dipendra, who was right-handed, shot himself in the left temple. They also find it suspicious that Prince Gyanendra, the king’s brother who became king himself, was conspicuously absent from the party and that Gyanendra’s son, Paras, was spared.
However, in the decades since the tragic event, no evidence has appeared to suggest anyone but Dipendra was to blame. And even Gyanendra didn’t stay king for long — the Nepalese monarchy was abolished in 2008.
“What motivated him to do this, I’m not sure, but it was the then-Crown Prince Dipendra who committed the murder,” Shahi reaffirmed.
After reading about Dipendra of Nepal, discover the devastating Nepal earthquake of 2015. Then, go inside the crimes of Charles Sobhraj, the French serial killer who was sentenced to life in prison in Nepal.
