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Dipendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev (27 June 1971 – 4 June 2001) was a member of the Nepalese Royal Family, who briefly reigned in a coma as King of Nepal from the 1st of June to the 4th of June, 2001. The official report submitted by the investigation team formed by the local government tells that, as the Crown Prince, he killed his family at a royal dinner on 1 June 2001, including his father King Birendra. The report also states that Dipendra was also mortally wounded by a self-inflicted gunshot to the side of the head. However, few really believe what was put forward to the general public. The Nepalese believe that the massacre was the result of a conspiracy rather than the Crown Prince murdering his entire family.^[1] He officially became king for three days as he lingered in a coma before dying.

Education[link]

Dipendra received his early education at Budhanilkantha School, Kathmandu. He also studied at Eton College in England. After Eton, he attended Tribhuvan University in Nepal and later joined the Military Academy, Kharipati. He studied for his master's degree at Tribhuvan University and was a PhD student in the same University.

Motive for murder[link]

Official reports state that Dipendra assassinated family members because of anger over a marriage dispute.^[1] Dipendra's choice of a bride was Devyani Rana, daughter of Pashupati SJB Rana a member of the Rana clan, against whom the Shah family of kings have a historic animosity. In recent times, though, Shah kings and princes have married almost exclusively members of the Rana family. The Rana clan had served as the hereditary prime ministers of Nepal until 1951 under the title 'Maharaja', and the two clans have a long history of inter-marriages.

Dipendra's uncle, Prince Gyanendra, is often accused of arranging the murder of all the competitors to the throne. He quickly issued an official statement claiming that the massacre had been the result of an automatic weapon accidentally misfiring. Gyanendra then appointed 2 men to investigate the massacre. According to this official account, Dipendra was denied his choice of a wife by his mother Aiswarya, and so he massacred his family in a much-publicised incident after indulging in a drinking binge. Among the dead were his father King Birendra, mother, brother, and sister. Dipendra survived comatose for three days, and was proclaimed King in his hospital bed. He died of his injuries on 4 June and was succeeded by Prince Gyanendra.^[2]

See also[link]

• Super Star (2002 Indian film) which was loosely based on the love story of Dipendra and Devyani Rana, and the Nepalese royal massacre.
• List of shortest reigning monarchs of all time
• History of Nepal
• Regicide, patricide and fratricide

References[link]

External links[link]

• Murder and intrigue in Katmandu (World Tibet News Network)
• Nepal: Murder in Palace, Maoists in Mountains (RWOR)
• Trapped in tradition (Frontline:India's National Magazine)

वीरेन्द्र वीर विक्रम शाह King Bīrendra Bīr Bikram Shāh
King of Nepal
Reign	31 January 1972 – 1 June 2001
Predecessor	Mahendra
Successor	Dipendra
Consort	Aishwarya Rajya Laxmi Devi Shah
Issue
Crown Prince Dipendra Princess Shruti Prince Nirajan
House	Shah
Father	King Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev
Mother	Indra Rajya Laxmi
Born	(1945-12-28)28 December 1945 Kathmandu, Nepal
Died	1 June 2001(2001-06-01) (aged 55) Kathmandu, Nepal
Religion	Hinduism

Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev (वीरेन्द्र वीर विक्रम शाह) (28 December 1945 – 1 June 2001) was a King of Nepal. The son of King Mahendra, whom he succeeded in 1972, he reigned until his death in the 2001 Nepalese royal massacre. He is the most internationally well-known Nepalese king in modern history.

Early life[link]

King Birendra was born at the Narayanhity Royal Palace in Kathmandu as the eldest son of the then Crown Prince Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev and his wife Crown Princess Indra Rajya Laxmi.^[1]

King Birendra was the first Nepalese monarch to receive a formal education. He spent eight years studying at St Joseph's College, a Jesuit school in Darjeeling, India. On 13 March 1955 his grandfather King Tribhuvan died and his father succeeded to the Nepalese throne. With his father's ascension King Birendra became the Crown Prince of Nepal.

In 1959 King Birendra enrolled at Eton College in the United Kingdom. After studying at Eton until 1964 he returned to Nepal where he began to explore the country by travelling incognito to remote parts of the country where he lived on whatever was available in the villages and monasteries.^[1] He later completed his education by spending some time at the University of Tokyo before studying political theory at Harvard University from 1967 to 1968.^[2] Late King Birendra enjoyed to travel in his youth and went on trips to Canada, Latin America, Africa and a number of Asian countries. He was also an art collector and supporter of Nepalese crafts people and artists. He also learnt to fly helicopters.^[3]

King Birendra was married to Aishwarya Rajya Laxmi Devi Rana from the Rana family on 27 February 1970.^[4] The wedding which was billed as one of the most lavish Hindu nuptial ceremonies in history cost $9.5 million to stage.^[5] King Birendra and Queen Aishwaraya had three children.

• Prince Dipendra (27 June 1971 – 4 June 2001)
• Princess Shruti (15 October 1976 – 1 June 2001)
• Prince Nirajan (6 November 1977–1 June 2001)

Reign[link]

Birendra succeeded to the throne on 31 January 1972 on the death of his father. On his ascension he was effectively an absolute monarch as he inherited a country where political parties were banned and he ruled through a system of local and regional councils known as panchayats.^[3] Birendra resented the absolute monarch tag maintaining that he presided over a democracy in which representatives to the assembly were indirectly elected and saying that his poor and backward country could not afford a democracy based on party politics and that it needed firm and decisive government.^[6] His first trips abroad as king were to India in October 1973 and China two months later as he believed that Nepal, sandwiched between the two Asian powers, should have good relations with both.^[7]

In an attempt to maintain the panchayat system of government prominent leaders of the Nepali Congress Party were arrested.^[3] Because of the growing pro democracy movement Birendra announced that a referendum to decide between a non-party and a multi-party system would be held. The referendum was held in May 1980 with the non-party system winning by a margin of 55% to 45%.^[7] During the 1980s the restraints that had been imposed on political organisations were starting to ease and liberal student-led groups were starting to appear demanding constitutional change in Nepal.^[2] He was made a British Field Marshal in 1980.

In 1990 a series of strikes and pro-democracy riots broke out in Nepal. Because of the rioting Birendra agreed to become a constitutional monarch. He appointed an independent Constitution Recommendation Commission to represent the main opposition factions and to prepare a new constitution to accommodate their demands for political reform. The commission presented him with the draft of the proposed constitution on 10 September 1990. The new constitution would make Birendra head of state of a constitutional monarchy with a system of multiparty democracy. The draft constitution was approved by the Prime Minister K.P. Bhattarai and his cabinet and so on 9 November 1990 Birendra promulgated the new constitution transforming Nepal into a constitutional monarchy.^[8]

However, the quarrels between various political parties and numerous social problems led to the Nepalese Civil War, a conflict between Maoist rebels and government forces, which lasted from 1996 until 2006.

Death[link]

Nepal's stability was threatened even more when Birendra and his family (including Queen Aiswarya) were massacred at a royal dinner on 1 June 2001.

Almost all of the Royal family members were killed in the massacre except Gyanendra Shah (Former King and younger brother of King Birendra).

Dipendra was proclaimed king but died a few days later of self-inflicted gunshot wounds during the massacre. Birendra's brother, Gyanendra, then became King.

However eyewitness reports and an official investigation (carried by a two-man committee made up of the Chief of the Supreme Court Keshav Prasad Upadhaya and the speaker of the House of Representatives Taranath Ranabhat),^[9] confirmed that Dipendra was the gunman. A detailed investigation is impossible as the "Tribhuvan Sadan" (the building where the massacre occurred) was demolished by the Gyanendra regime.^[10]

References[link]

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Princess Shruti (15 October 1976 - 1 June 2001) was the daughter of King Birendra and Queen Aiswarya, and sister of Crown Prince Dipendra and Prince Nirajan. Princess Shruti studied at Kanti Ishwori Sishu Vidhyalaya in Nepal, St. Mary's school in Nepal, and later at Mayo College Girls School in Ajmer, India. She completed her bachelors degree at Padma Kanya Campus in Nepal.

She was married to Gorakh Shamsher J. B. Rana, a member of an aristocratic Rana family of Nepal, descendants of Maharajah Chandra Shumshere Rana. Princess Shruti had two daughters Girvani (b. 22 January 1998) and Surangana (b. 2 October 2000).

She, along with her mother, father and brother Nirajan, were killed in the royal palace massacre on 1 June 2001.

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Derek van der Kooy is Professor in the Department of Medical Genetics and Microbiology at the University of Toronto. He received a Master’s Degree in Psychology at the University of British Columbia, and a Ph.D in Anatomy, both at Erasmus University in 1978, as well in the Department of Anatomy at the University of Toronto in 1980. Dr. van der Kooy gained postdoctoral research experience at Cambridge University and at the Salk Institute in California.

In 1981, he became an Assistant Professor, was promoted to Associate Professor in 1986, and has served as Professor in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the University of Toronto ^[1] from 1991 until 2002, when he became a Professor in the Department of Medical Genetics and Microbiology.^[2] His lab is the Neurobiology Research Group.^[3]

His lab in the Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research, carries out various neuroscience and developmental biology research projects. In 1994 his paper on neural stem cells in the adult mammalian forebrain was published in the journal Neuron. This work first established that adult mammalian neural stem cells were located in the subependyma of the forebrain lateral ventricle, where two types of lineage related precursor cells, progenitor cells and stem cells, were shown to be present. Proliferation of these cell types were characterized in further experiments that were reported in articles in Development and the Journal of Neuroscience. Of note, Derek's lab produced the first report of stem cells in the adult mammalian eye, published in 2000 in Science (magazine). Further work, which was published in the journal, Neuron, 2001, documented how embryonic stem cells were shown to differentiate directly to neural stem cells through a default mechanism. Derek's lab continues to investigate the nature of stem cells, embryonic and adult, the concept of immortal cells, and the differentiation of embryonic stem cells, capable of forming any tissue in the body, to neural stem cells.

A recent report published in Science (magazine) by Dr. Derek van der Kooy's research group demonstrated that BDNF, when infused into the ventral tegmental area (VTA), can induce an opiate-dependent-like reward state in animals in the absence of opiate administration.

Previous studies have demonstrated that the opiate reward is mediated by a dopamine-independent reward system in nondependent animals, and by a dopamine-dependent reward system in dependent animals. In the present study, infusions of BDNF into the VTA were able to shift opiate reward from a dopamine-independent system to a dopamine-dependent system. This switch is mediated through a specific change in GABA-A receptors in the VTA from inhibitory to excitatory signaling in response to increased BDNF.

This work suggests that BDNF may play a critical role in mediating the shift to a drug-dependent motivational state, a crucial step in the pathogenesis of drug addiction.

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research