Gyanendra, Paras involved in 2001 royal massacre: Report

Deposed king Gyanendra and his son Paras were involved in the 2001 palace massacre that killed ex-monarch Birendra along with most of his family, a Nepalese prisoner, who claimed to be a former royal bodyguard, has alleged.

Gyanendra has been at the centre of many conspiracy theories, including the palace massacre that killed his popular older brother Birendra along with most of the royal family, by the then crown prince Dipendra, who was allegedly fuelled by a cocktail of drugs and alcohol.

Lal Bahadur Magar, who is serving a jail term Birgunj jail on charge of killing a couple, claimed that he was an eye-witness to the royal massacre, according to a report in eKantipur, the online news portal of Kathmandu Post newspaper.

Magar claimed that former crown prince Paras was behind the killing of the family of the former King, said the report, which quoted the news agency RSS as saying.

According to the report, Magar, who claimed that he was one of the bodyguards of Deependra at the time when the massacre took place, accused Paras of involvement in the killing when Maoist parliamentarian Leela Kumar Baga went to meet him in the jail yesterday. The prisoner alleged that Gyanendra had a hand in the massacre, the news portal reported.

Gyanendra, who for the first time acquired a passport in his name at the age of 64 last month, is in India on a personal visit since the first week of December.