Nepal's crown prince may have married in secret

As Nepal's new king debated with his advisers on how best to defuse his subjects' anger, more detail was emerging yesterday about the dangerous liaison between Crown Prince Dipendra and his girlfriend Devyani Rana which is supposed to have provoked last Friday's bloodbath.

Unconfirmed reports said that the couple, whom Dipendra's mother Queen Aishwarya had forbidden to marry, had already secretly tied the knot in a simple religious ceremony in Bhaktapur, one of the ancient capitals in the Kathmandu valley, possibly just days before the fatal dinner party.

And a front page article in the Sydney Morning Herald revealed that Devyani had secretly stayed with the Crown Prince in Sydney during the recent Olympic Games.

The newspaper reported that Devyani had arrived three days after the Crown Prince and left two days before he did. They had gone shopping and sightseeing together, but had kept their holidays a secret from Australia's Nepali community.

Devyani was said to have been rejected by the late Queen because she was from the wrong branch of the noble Rana line, and was also one-quarter Indian.

Crown Prince Dipendra was originally reported to have murdered his father, King Birendra, his mother, Queen Aishwarya, and eight other members of the royal family and court on Friday night (Saturday morning NZT), before turning his gun on himself. He died later.

The official version of events is that the shooting was accidental.

- INDEPENDENT