In April 1999, in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, in a sleepy town called Littleton in Colorado, 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School were killed by two students from the same school in a 16- minute killing spree in the worst school rampage in American history. The killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who had been described by a few of their teachers and friends as "nice and gentle", subsequently took their own lives.
On 1 June 2001, in the foothills of the Himalaya in a Kathmandu that was getting ready for the night, nine members of the royal family were killed, in a carnage that a dozen witnesses report was carried out singlehandedly by Crown Prince Dipendra. He is thought to have killed himself subsequently.
All Nepal tried to make sense of the bizarre madness, the inexplicability of a son, an heir to the throne, no less, going around summarily executing his entire family within a few furious minutes. Two long months have elapsed since the chilling incident at the Narayanhiti Royal Palace, and the frantic fabrication of conspiracy scenarios has abated somewhat and the national attention is diverted to the ever-pressing problem with the Maoists. The public seems to be coming around to sullen acceptance of what it has been told was the truth.
That is the wrong way to tackle this problem and, even if there is no strident demand from the public, the authorities must live up to their responsibility and try to present more evidence and shed more light on the 1 June episode. If the royal palace, the Parliament and the (new) government of Sher Bahadur Deuba are not mindful of the need to pursue the matter, the cloud over the royal status of King Gyanendra will not lift. And in the long term, this will be to the detriment of both the Nepali monarchy and people.