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Prachanda’s secret life unraveled

Prachanda’s secret life unraveled
ekantipur, 18-Oct-08

In 2006, Anirban Roy was on assignment to report on the April Movement targeting the autocratic regime of King Gyanendra. While in Kathmandu, Roy heard a lot about Maoist chief Prachanda who had stolen the national and international limelight through his avant-garde ideologies.

“Everywhere you went, people talked about the radical communist leader,” he recounts in the preface to the book. “Prachanda was the new epicentre of Nepal's political dynamics.”

The 38-year-old journalist is today the Kathmandu-based correspondent of The Hindustan Times. Though he visited Nepal five times between 2001 and 2006 as a tourist, it was during his sixth visit that he became inquisitive about the persona of the Maoist top brass. He was truly enamoured of the aura of the Maoist chief and his disputable ideology that “gave a voice to the millions of poor and oppressed people” and at the same time “led a bloody civil war killing 13,000 people”.

“The Maoist chief led an underground life for more than 25 years, and piecing together the stories about him and authenticating them were the most difficult part,” he writes. The result, Prachanda: The Unknown Revolutionary, is a work of investigation. The writer has interviewed almost all of Prachanda's close associates and relatives.

The book gives the reader a glimpse into Prachanda's hidden life with rare anecdotes and photographs. A photo of a young Pushpa Kamal Dahal shows him staring coyly and tightly clutching his fists. It goes without saying that he was a determined young man. He was obsessed with books on revolutionary icons such as Fidel Castro, Mao Zedong and Naxalite leader Kanu Sanyal, of whom he considers himself a “self-proclaimed” disciple. In school, he often sneaked into the library or bookstores that imported books on communist ideology from India. In college, he would borrow profusely from teachers, his compatriots and libraries run by socialist states.

His infatuation with communism began from the time he was a school-goer, and he would often bunk classes to participate in communist programmes. Then two things happened that would shape his communist beliefs—the Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China initiated by Mao Zedong and the Naxalbari uprising in India headed by Kanu Sanyal. While the Naxalbari movement next door provided Prachanda moral support to envisage a similar kind of revolution in Nepal, Mao Zedong's strategy of a prolonged People's War taught him the benefits of setting up bases in the countryside and surrounding the cities.

At 19, Prachanda was already giving lectures to locals on the new theories of communism. Upon his graduation from the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science (IAAS) at Rampur, he was already a pukka communist. Life took a U-turn when his family became unable to pay for his university education. He could not even secure a government job, and had to be satisfied with being a teacher. He was never fond of teaching, however, and he kept hopping from one teaching job to another. Teaching allowed him much free time which he could devote to the burgeoning communist movement. The radical communist leader even took a job in a U.S. sponsored development project for three months owing to acute poverty.

After he was appointed general secretary of the All Nepal Youth Organization headed by Matrika Yadav, Pushpa Kamal Dahal for the first time campaigned openly in support of the communist movement and against the draconian panchayat regime. The police soon raided his house on the charge of inciting youths against the panchayat regime, and he was forced to go underground. He was 27. After that, he constantly shifted from one hideout to another with his wife and four young children.

The first thing Prachanda did after becoming general secretary was convince his father to sell their house and land at Bhimsen Nagar to raise money for the party. He was lucky to have a wife who did not mind surviving on rice and green vegetable soup and cooking on a single kerosene stove. Despite the difficulties and hardships, his children also have fond memories of him. His youngest child Prakash recalls how his father was different from other fathers. “He never had to hurry in the morning to go to the office. Instead, he stayed home reading books or discussing something with friends.”

Prachanda's disillusionment with the Nepali political system was incited by ceaseless political squabbling for power and negligence of the plight of the rural poor. He dreamt of destroying government institutions and replacing them with a revolutionary peasant regime. He wholeheartedly followed the methods laid down by Peru's Shining Path rebels. Prachanda dealt with dissent ruthlessly, hence there was a tremendous rise in extrajudicial killings, kangaroo courts and cases of torture.

Unfortunately, Roy makes no mention of the wrong ways that Prachanda allowed his cadres to pursue to get their way. From the start of the civil war, Maoist cadres have indiscriminately indulged in threats, extortion and intimidation. They have tortured, maimed and killed hundreds of people who refused to do as they said. Prachanda has described the People's War as the means to end feudal structures. Ironically, the city-centred elite whom the Maoist view as feudal have remained untouched by the civil war.

Despite the flaws in his strategies, Prachanda received immense support from people at the periphery -- Dalits, the socially marginalized and minorities—who have been historically oppressed by the establishment. There are still a substantial number of Nepalis who see the Maoists as their messiah—the only alternative to the old, repressive social order.

The unexpected performance of the CPN-Maoist in the Constituent Assembly election has brought Prachanda to the forefront of politics. He has made it to the prime minister's chair and accepted that there is no alternative to multiparty democracy in the country. However, there are challenges ahead. Now he has to deliver peace, stability and economic prosperity to a nation reeling under acute poverty. The people have willingly given him the mandate to draft a new constitution and initiate new economic development. If he fails to deliver, the euphoria will die down.

The best thing I like about the book is the conciseness with which it has approached the life of the rebel leader. Descriptions of the battles between Maoists and security forces given from a Maoist perspective also make captivating reading. The best account is that of the attack on Beni Bazaar in which the Maoists destroyed the Kali Prasad barracks, the district police office and the district administration office. They also took 33 persons captive besides seizing a huge quantity of arms and ammunition.

There are two things that I cannot fail to mention. First, Roy has concentrated on only one side of the coin: Prahanda's charming personality. The writer has showered him with praise and justified the bloody civil war as the best way to establish a new Nepal. What he needs to do is also dig up Prachanda's ruthless side, the factors that prompted him to choose armed struggle and if a bloodbath is indeed a prerequisite for revolution. Second, as Roy has admitted in an interview to The Hindustan Times, the book that he has written is merely a skeleton. There are many autobiographical elements that are missing, and Roy needs to do more research to give the skeleton flesh and blood in the subsequent editions.

Reviewed by Monica Regmi

Nick Simons Institute

Nick Simons Institute

The white guy shaking hands of PM Dahal on August 17, 2008 looked eerily familiar to me. Then I searched and there he was, James Simons (aka Jim Simons) of Renaissance Technologies, the biggest earner in the hedge fund industry in 2006. According to the Alpha Magazine, the chronicler of the industry, his take-home pay in 2006 was a staggering $1.7 billion - more than the size of Nepal's budget. In 2007, he earned only $2.8 billion, a lot in an absolute sense but less than John Paulson & George Soros.

Looks like he is supporting health care in Nepal through Nick Simons Institute founded in memory of his son Nick. The Board of the Institute is composed of who's who of Nepal - Dr. Bhekh B. Thapa, Chitra Lekha Yadav, Kunda Dixit and Pravakhar Rana amongst others.

Jim Simons' efforts to help Nepal appear strikingly similar to efforts by another uber Yankee capitalist, Richard Blum of Blum Capital who does his "good work" through an outfit called American Himalayan Foundation.

Hedge Fund Managers Make A Bundle in 2007

Hedge Fund Managers Make A Bundle in 2007

How The 10 Richest Hedge Fund Managers Got That Way
Wall Street Journal, April 16, 2008,
By Heidi N. Moore

Hedge funds are so plentiful that people sometimes sniff that anyone can start one. Not everyone, however, can be the Roger Federer or Tiger Woods of investing.

And just as Roger and Tiger have their techniques, so do hedge-fund managers, who used widely divergent strategies to capitalize on the market turmoil of last year. So says Alpha Magazine, which today released its annual listing of the 50 richest hedge-fund managers in the world, ranked by their compensation. Prepare yourself: it is so obscenely high in some cases that it will look almost lurid. (As Alpha cheekily explains, five of the hedge-fund managers on the list earned more than $1.2 billion each last year, or more than J.P. Morgan Chase is paying for all of beleaguered Bear Stearns.) The top 50 did so well that Alpha raised the bar for yearly compensation to $210 million from $200 million, locking out two perennial favorites.

Those who know the hedge-fund business won’t be particularly surprised that there were so many outsize successes. Hedge funds are most profitable when market volatility is high, and 2007’s roller coaster credit crunch certainly provided that. The glaring caveat is that hedge funds can reap profits in those roiling markets only as long as they can stay in business. The markets are fickle, and the threat is that today’s successful strategy can be tomorrow’s liquidation, as the collapse of Peloton Advisors proved. As they say in those fund documents: Past results are no guarantee of future returns.

Deal Journal took a look at Alpha’s list and how the 10 highest-paid managers made their money. We ranked them below by name, firm and the amount of their yearly compensation in 2007. All the returns and compensation numbers below come from Alpha, and you can view the full list on their Web site. As you will see, no single strategy dominated.

SUBPRIME MORTGAGES
John Paulson, Paulson & Co., $3.7 billion. Paulson made $3.7 billion last year, mostly by shorting, or betting against, subprime mortgage securities and collateralized debt obligations. One of Paulson’s credit funds earned a 590% return last year, according to Alpha; another racked up a 353% return.

Philip Falcone, Harbinger Capital Parters, $1.7 billion. There is no word yet on how much money Falcone has made from challenging the New York Times board, but shorting subprime mortgages clearly was a profitable decision.

ACTIVISM
Timothy Barakett, Atticus Capital, $750 million. Barakett made his money, and reputation, on derailing the Deutsche Borse from buying the London Stock Exchange. Atticus also pushed Barclays to drop its bid for the Dutch bank ABN Amro.

LONG-SHORT
Stephen Mandel Jr., Lone Pine Capital, $710 million. Mandel’s firm scored a 57% return through the tried-and-true strategy that hedge-fund managers call “long-short,” or buying some stocks while shorting others. Mandel shorted retail and consumer finance stocks last year.

John Griffin, Blue Ridge Capital Management, $625 million. As hedge funds have become larger and fancier, long-short almost seems a quaint relic, but Griffin scored a 65% net return in 2007 by just doing that.

Andreas Halvorsen, Viking Global Investors, $520 million. Halverson manages $9 billion and scored a 41% return. Last year, he expanded his focus on financial stocks such as Invesco, according to Alpha.

DIVERSIFICATION
Ken Griffin, Citadel Investment Group, $1.5 billion. In the past year, Citadel has increased its assets to $20 billion from a little more than $13 billion and has been active in buying businesses in widely divergent areas. Citadel snapped up part of the credit portfolio of troubled (and now defunct) Sowood Capital Management and bought bankrupt mortgage lender ResMAE. It also moved into providing administration services for hedge funds and split off a market maker in derivatives from its main business.

Steven Cohen, SAC Capital, $900 million. Cohen takes a 43% performance fee and had returns of only 13% in 2007. Still, his annualized returns are around 40%, according to Alpha, and his firm pursues everything from vanilla equity investments to credit markets, convertible bonds and emerging markets.

KEEPING THEIR SECRETS
George Soros, Soros Fund Management $2.9 billion. Soros’s $17 billion flagship fund scored a 31.7% return last year. How is anyone’s guess, but the fund did reduce its holdings in equities.

James Simons, Renaissance Technologies Corp., $2.8 billion: Renaissance’s flagship Medallion fund was up 73% in 2007.

Jung Bahadur revisited

Jung Bahadur revisited
Himal Southasian, July 2008
Ramesh Dhungel

Is there something redeeming for the modern Nepali citizen in this strongman of long ago?

The current confusion in Nepal is not unique in the context of the chaotic nation-building processes of the rest of Southasia. Yet, the country’s 19th-century history was significantly different. At that time, most of the smaller but stronger states of India were disappearing, one after another, from the political geography of the Subcontinent. British power in the region had reached its height, in large part due to its unchallengeable military supremacy. In this scenario, Nepal was the only country in the region that was able to maintain an independent existence, by resisting the military hegemony of the British colonial might in India.

While aspects of historical personalities might indeed be critiqued even centuries later for their possible failings, the role of individuals in the shaping of states bequeathed to the present generation must be acknowledged. Among such personalities linked to the building of Nepal were the founder king Prithvi Narayan Shah, his son, Bahadur Shah, and the shogun Jung Bahadur. Each of these played important roles in making Nepal a strong state, and in maintaining its independence such that, in modern times, the citizens would have the ability to build a society on the basis of sovereignty. The successful military campaign launched by Prithvi Narayan Shah of Gorkha, for its territorial expansion, was by far the most important event in the history of Nepal. Through this military campaign, more than 100 princely and feudatory states scattered within the territory of present-day Nepal were brought under the control of a single unit. The early rulers of the consolidated Nepal – which was actually an enlarged Gorkha – seemed eager to accept the historic name of ‘Nepal’, in order to refer to the entire territory that they had brought under the control of the kingdom of Gorkha.

Prithvi Narayan Shah was not the only stalwart of his dynasty. His youngest son, Bahadur, also distinguished himself in military campaigns meant for territorial expansion, which was the raison d’etre of the fledgling state. The names of several Gorkhali commanders and army officers – including Shivram Singh Basnet, Kalu Pande, Kahar Singh Basnet, Ramkrishna Kunwar, Bakhtabar Singh Basnet, Amar Singh Thapa, Bhakti Thapa and Balabhadra Kunwar – are equally important in recalling this period of military-led expansion. History provides a reminder that a strong state of Nepal, which was capable of resisting at least three major invasions by its giant neighbours, British India and China, was not least a result of Gorkha’s strong military strategy and force projection, based on guerrilla tactics. Indeed, it was due to this historic feat by the early rulers and officials of the country, united through military might, that the inhabitants of diverse ethnic backgrounds were able to preserve their historical and cultural traditions. This might seem an incongruous statement amidst all of the talk of the Gorkhali state having subsumed all ethnicities and regions through the expansionism of the Khas (Nepali) language; but it is also true that Nepal’s ability to remain independent and isolated actually helped identities remain distinct all the way into the modern era, which began for Nepal in 1950.

Thus secured from external invasion, Nepal became a safe haven for traditions of both Vedic and Buddhist origin. Believing that the Hindu and Buddhist traditions of the Indian Subcontinent were under threat by external or non-Indic cultures and practices – ie, Muslim and European (Christian) – Prithvi Narayan Shah took pride in creating a safe state (rajya), where local traditions and cultures of the Himalaya and Subcontinent could be protected and nurtured. Thus, although Nepal was an emerging nation of multiethnic communities, adorned with unique local traditions linked to Hindu, Buddhist and Shamanistic practices, Prithvi Narayan proudly announced that the kingdom he had created was actually an asli hindustana, or an ‘uncontaminated’ land of local and ancient traditions of the Indian Subcontinent. The modern-day commentator might point at this formulation and claim that Prithvi Narayan was seeking to create an exclusive Hindu state, but that is not at all clear; neither is how exactly Prithvi Narayan understood the term Hindu.

Looking West
Nepal’s military campaign permanently ended after the Anglo-Nepal War of 1814 and the Treaty of Sugauli of 1816. Thus, the old relationship based on rivalry between Nepal and British India also came to an end. Between 1816 and 1846, Nepal remained entrenched under very ugly internal court conflicts. Most of this period was dominated by the shrewd and autocratic rule of Nepal’s third prime minister, Bhimsen Thapa. In general, Bhimsen’s policies were anti-British, but ultimately his adventurism became counterproductive – both to himself and to Nepal. The country witnessed a period of palace intrigue and wrangling for power that took Bhimsen’s life, but not before the Sugauli Treaty had truncated the empire into the region between the Mechi and Mahakali rivers.

After the Kot Massacre of 1846, which left dead most of the contenders for power, a certain figure suddenly began to tower over Nepali politics: a relative of Bhimsen Thapa’s by the name of Jung Bahadur. Having witnessed the failure of Bhimsen Thapa, and the major territorial and military loss of Nepal caused by his short-sighted anti-British policy, Jung Bahadur decided to move towards securing cordial ties with the British colonial authorities in Calcutta. He even offered Nepal’s military help to the British authorities during what is known as the first independence movement, launched by the Indian princely states in 1857.

Although Jung Bahadur’s image, as portrayed by native and most foreign historians, is not a particularly positive one, historical manuscripts preserved in the Royal Asiatic society and the British Library of London throw a different light on this ruler. Undoubtedly, Jung Bahadur was a ruthless autocrat, as attested to by his leadership of the Kot Massacre. He was also shrewd, and the founder of what would be the more than century-long autocracy of the Rana clan in Nepal. However, his contribution towards territorial gain (if that is to be perceived as a positive thing, so long as it is in historical time) and the building of Nepal’s international identity should not be overlooked.

After the treaty of Sugauli, Jung Bahadur was the only Nepali ruler to be able to change the political boundaries of the country, by gaining a significant territory of the western Tarai, including Banke, Bardia, Kailali and Kanchanpur. Known as naya muluk, this territory, originally part of the Gorkhali conquest, had been wrested at Sugauli, and was returned with thanks for the services rendered in crushing the ‘Sepoy Mutiny’ in Lucknow. Jung Bahadur himself led the Nepali forces that entered the erstwhile Awadh.

One significant part of Jung Bahadur’s reign was his visit to England in 1850. The main intention of his visit to Europe was to observe the military prowess of England and other major European countries. He returned fully convinced that going against Britain, or British rule in India, would eventually lead to losing Nepal’s independence, as well as the loss of various other direct and indirect benefits for Nepal. Jung Bahadur was well aware that the princely states of India were either under threat of losing their own independence, or had already been swallowed up by the ‘government’ of the East India Company in India. Thus, he wanted to make sure that he did not repeat the mistakes of his uncle Bhimsen.

Instead, he began working to establish a tactful diplomacy with the British authorities, both in India and England. In this way, Jung was able to gain international recognition for himself and Nepal, by establishing and maintaining a special relationship with England. After Prithvi Narayan, Jung Bahadur thus comes across as the most significant historical personality associated with the Nepali nation state. The former established the country, with the capital in Kathmandu; the latter ensured its independent existence through a correct reading of geopolitics and the growing power of the East India Company. Admittedly, Jung Bahadur bowed before the might of the British, and appeased the Company by giving support to the recovery of Lucknow. But modern-day Nepali citizens can perhaps grant him these faults, in light of what he achieved in return.

Honour and diplomacy
Manuscripts relating to the triangle of correspondence between the British envoy Brian Hodgson in Darjeeling, Governor-General Charles Canning in Calcutta and Jung Bahadur in Kathmandu throw fascinating light on Jung’s efforts to bring the lost territory of the western Tarai back under Nepali sovereignty. These sources also highlight the shrewd moves by Jung Bahadur on multiple occasions, for Nepal’s (and, doubtless, his own) prestige and general benefit. During the early 1830s, Brian Hodgson, the British Resident in Nepal, submitted a report on the Nepal Army to the governor-general, in which he formally proposed establishing a separate Gorkha regiment in the British Army. Hodgson’s proposal offered benefits for both countries, and his intention was to employ the unused army personnel of Nepal in service of British colonial strength in India.

In the beginning, the authorities in Calcutta and London paid scant attention to Hodgson’s suggestion. It was only after more than a decade that Jung Bahadur used the proposal to solve the employment problem among the so-called ‘martial tribes’ of Nepal, in order to build a deeper and lasting relationship between England and Nepal. Thereafter, by remaining in close contact with Hodgson in Darjeeling, Jung Bahadur took the initiative of establishing a separate Gorkha regiment in the British Army.

While Jung Bahadur was always looking to please the British authorities, he was careful not to do so at the cost of his own and Nepal’s prestige. He was very sensitive about the status of both his person and his country. One notable instance of this was when Jung Bahadur, claiming to be a plenipotentiary ambassador of the sovereign king of Nepal, declined to attend a formal meeting with Queen Victoria, unless he was escorted by a cavalry of 22 soldiers, as per his title. The British authorities were forced to postpone the meeting for two hours to ready the required horses. During his visit to England in 1850, Jung Bahadur was honoured with a 19-gun salute, considered to be quite high according to British tradition, with only the kings of powerful states of India and other parts of the world receiving such honours. He would have been quite happy with that.

In consideration of Jung Bahadur’s friendly service to the British Empire, Queen Victoria eventually awarded him one of the highest British medals, the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. A special ceremony to confer the medal was held in Calcutta, with the governor-general of India assigned to grant the medal on behalf of the queen. By that time, however, most British Indian officials of high rank, including the governor-general, had become suspicious of Jung Bahadur’s shrewd way of, somehow, always coming out of situations on top. Evidently, they were also envious both that such a high British honour was being bestowed on him, and of his growing popularity in England and abroad. Consequently, Calcutta decided to humiliate Jung Bahadur by giving him only a 17-gun salute during the awarding ceremony. In addition, Jung Bahadur was unhappy with the way that the medal was conferred during the ceremony, including the fact that the governor-general used his left hand to pin the medal on his chest.

Jung Bahadur did not take the slight lying down. Immediately after his return from Calcutta, he asked James Cannyon, an English tutor to his sons and son-in-law, to transcribe a letter that he would dictate in Nepali. A copy of this letter was also sent to Brian Hodgson. In it, Jung Bahadur requests that a message of his dissatisfaction be forwarded to the secretaries of Queen Victoria, as well as to other high-ranking palace officials. He even warned that he would return the medal if he did not receive an apology from the British authorities. In his letter (see pic), he wrote:

My pay was my salute of 19 guns; it has been cut down to 17 and I am told to keep quiet. Her Majesty the Queen most graciously conferred on me the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, but Her Viceroy while giving it to me with one hand with the other took away my two guns, and while thus disrating me … Col. Ramsay (the British Resident in Kathmandu) told me that it was useless to say any thing of it.

At a time when kings, nawabs and satraps were falling like nine-pins all over 19th-century Southasia, Jung Bahadur emerged as a man of international stature in the Subcontinent of the day. He was probably a tyrant, probably a man of personal avarice; but we cannot forget that he was a product of his time, one who found the opportunity to wield power and grabbed it. He can be (and is) critiqued for having drafted the civil code that relegated various ethnicities of Nepal to specified levels in the hierarchy of ‘touchability’. He consolidated the legal system, and established the role of succession such that the Rama regime would stand for a century. He dared to transgress the traditional stricture against travelling across the kalapani (black water), in order to understand global geopolitics. He came back convinced that the British Empire could not be fought, but rather had to be appeased.

The growing demand for a ‘history from below’ is proper and necessary. After all, it is certainly true that, for too long, the writing of history has been limited to the exploits and glorification of rajas and nawabs. Amidst the larger stream of the Subcontinent’s history-writing, those that form a side-stream can oftentimes be neglected. At the same time, the trend towards ‘histories from below’ can potentially lead to the neglect of certain contributions of days past – even by tyrants. Clearly, it will be necessary to come to a more full understanding of Jung Bahadur, even in his excesses, in order to understand better the history of 19th-century Nepal to the present.

Nepal palace massacre survivor finds new love

Nepal palace massacre survivor finds new love
Macau News.Net
7th August, 2008 (IANS)

The man who witnessed the gunning down of his loved ones at the horrific massacre in Nepal's royal palace and survived despite injuries will start a new life seven years after the tragedy. Gorakh Shumsher Rana, the son-in-law of assassinated Nepal king Birendra, is set to get married this year.

Like Devyani Rana, the girlfriend of Nepal's late crown prince Dipendra, who decided to bury the past and exchange wedding vows with Indian Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Arjun Singh's grandson Aishwarya, the Nepali aristocrat will take the plunge in December.

Rana had his life turned upside down by the carnage in June 2001. Besides witnessing the slaying of the king, queen Aishwarya and other royal relatives, he also saw his wife, princess Shruti, die in the hail of bullets that was blamed on a drinks and drugs-crazed Dipendra.

Rana himself received bullet injuries but survived.

He was also a key witness who described the incidents before the commission formed to investigate the massacre that sowed the seeds of destruction for Nepal's royal dynasty.

The 39-year-old, who was married to the princess in 1997 and has two daughters by her, will plight his troth again to the niece of former royalist prime minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand.

The bride, Dipti, is a humanities student at Kathmandu's Padma Kanya campus. Rana, an economics graduate and MBA from the US, is currently working for the Standard Chartered Bank in Nepal.

Only four people who had attended that fateful family dinner on June 1 survived while 10 died. Besides Rana, the other three were the then queen mother Ratna, who had retired before the shooting started, Aishwarya's sister Komal who later became queen, and Komal's son Paras, who later became the crown prince.

The three-day wedding from Dec 8 however promises to be at a much lower key than Devyani's, which was the marriage of the year and celebrated with pomp in both India and Nepal.

The marriage is likely to be attended by deposed king Gyanendra and his wife Komal, who have also been leading a quiet life on the outskirts of Kathmandu since the abolition of monarchy and their ouster from the royal palace in June.

Rana has been a staunch opponent of the various conspiracy theories that began to arise after the palace massacre. Some people believe that the gunman was actually a hired assassin from abroad who wore a mask resembling Dipendra and killed the heir to Nepal's throne as well.

Nepal's Maoists have alleged that Gyanendra's family was involved in the slayings that paved the way for his ascent to the throne.

Others hint at the complicity of external agencies like the CIA and India's RAW agency.

Rana however has staunchly maintained that he saw Dipendra go berserk and let fly with the gun, killing his family.

Later, Dipendra is said to have turned the gun on himself.