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Fresh reports surfaced Wednesday accusing Prince Dipendra of the deaths of King Birendra and nine others, even as a probe into the massacre of Friday night began an informal sitting, despite a boycott by the main opposition party.
Day five since the massacre was full of appeals for public restraint. Members of parliament, trade and business associations, labour and social bodies lent voice to the appeals for calm.
In interviews to two western journalists, a Nepali newspaper and a TV channel, relatives of family members who had witnessed the massacre said the dead prince, who died a king, had been responsible for the regicide and massacre at the Narayanhity Palace, in which virtually the entire Shah dynasty of Nepal was eliminated.
Their claims corroborate the initial official explanation of what had happened at the family get-together. Palace officials had later claimed that King Birendra, Queen Aishwarya and eight other family members were killed when a gun accidentally fired.
The probe committee appointed on Monday by King Gyanendra to report into the incident met for 10 hours at the home of the Supreme Court Chief Justice Keshav Prasad Udadhyaya.
Pratinidhi Sabha Speaker Taranath Ranabhat said the investigation committee met for about seven hours on Tuesday and then on Wednesday for another three hours at the residence of the chief justice, who is heading it.
Ranabhat said the committee would commence formal sittings once it receives its terms of reference from the king. ''Therefore the time alloted to it to submit its report -- that is three days -- shall commence only then,'' he added.
Meanwhile, the condition of Nepal's new Queen Komal Rajya Laxmi Devi Shah continued to improve, physicians attending on her at a hospital in the capital said. Queen Komal was among 14 members of the royal family and immediate relatives killed or injured in the Friday night shooting.
The condition of Kumar Gorakh Shumshere Jung Bahadur Rana, King Birendra's son-in-law, was described as stable and improving, while Princess Shobha, the late king's sister, too, was progressing satisfactorily, a palace health bulletin said.
Death of a Monarch: The Complete Coverage
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