Kasra Naji: Clan rivalry may have sparked royal killings

Kasra Naji

CNN Correspondent Kasra Naji has been following developments in Kathmandu, Nepal, surrounding the shooting deaths on Friday of several members of Nepal's royal family including the king and queen.

Military sources at the palace told The Associated Press that 29-year-old Crown Prince Dipendra Bir Bikram turned against his family and attacked them because his mother did not approve of his choice of bride. The prince wished to marry the daughter of a former government minister who is a member of the aristocratic Rana family, which ruled Nepal until 1951.

Q: What was it about this potential future wife that was so unacceptable to the king and queen?

NAJI: There is a clan here called Rana and apparently within the Rana clan there has been a historical feud between two or three strands within it. The king's wife, the queen, belongs to one, and this prospective bride belonged to another. So, basically, clan rivalry. This is what people here are saying anyway.

Q: For what reason would the royal family change its story about how the shooting happened?

NAJI: My own impression -- and I have talked to other people and they seem to agree with it -- is that the new story is damage control.

The monarchy is a very secretive institution here and they have, or they have had, aspirations to get involved in government. So the monarchy, which has a very high opinion of itself, did not want to be associated with an incident in which one member kills the rest of the family. My own impression is that they wanted to make sure that the image of the monarchy in this country is not undermined.

Also, many people here are pro-monarchists, although this is a constitutional monarchy -- the government runs the day-to-day affairs of things and the monarch is a figurehead, much the same way as with Britain's monarchy. Therefore, many people who support the monarchy would have been disappointed with the monarchy as an institution. So again, damage control as far as support for the monarchy is concerned.

Q: Please describe to us how the nation is mourning?

NAJI: Officially there are five days of mourning. The male government employees are expected to shave their heads because that is the Hindu tradition of mourning.

Shops are closed. Television and radio have stopped entertainment programs. There are shrines. Impromptu shrines have mushroomed everywhere in the streets, where they have pictures of the king and the queen garlanded or placed among flowers with incense sticks burning -- and people come and sit there and remember the king or the queen. In the hotel I am staying in there is a candle burning in the lobby in front of a picture on a table.

On the streets today there have been processions and demonstrations by pro-monarchist groups or supporters of the monarchy carrying pictures of the monarchs and shouting slogans in support of the monarchy saying the king and the queen are immortals. That has been going on all day, in fact.

Outside the palace there are long queues of people who wanted to sign memorial books at the gate of the palace. And every now and then small groups are allowed to go just inside the palace in the guard's room to sign these books and then they come out and the next group goes in.

Flowers are being put in front of the gate of the palace -- we are not talking about a Princess Diana type of scene -- but in front of the gate people have put bouquets of flowers with messages like "to our beloved royal family."