As Nepal cremates its second king in three days, the streets explode with pent-up anger

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The short, strange reign of King Dipendra of Nepal ended before dawn yesterday with the death of the 31-year-old monarch, said to have been in a coma in a Kathmandu hospital since Friday night. He had been crowned on Saturday.

Nobody outside a tight circle of insiders saw him in hospital before he died, not even the Prime Minister, Girija Koirala. Last night, as monkeys clattered over iron temple roofs near by, the city air still stinking of burnt tyre rubber from the day's riot, he was cremated at Pashupathinath, Nepal's holiest temple.

He was the second king of Nepal to be be cremated in three days. On Saturday the body of his father, King Birendra, was consumed here beside his mother, Queen Aishwarya, and most of their immediate family. After Friday night's massacre it was reported that he had killed his whole family out of frustration for not being allowed to marry the woman of his choice.

This version of Friday's events reached Kathmandu quickly through the news reports of foreign satellite television channels. But yesterday, as news of the alleged royal assassin's death spread rapidly through the population, it was impossible to find a Nepali who believed it. Except for a few tiny demonstrations, Kathmandu had been eerily quiet all weekend. But with the news of Dipendra's death yesterday morning, the dam broke.

Traffic vanished from the streets. All over Kathmandu people gathered in sullen knots, murmuring to each other, sitting on their haunches or leaning against walls, all waiting for something. Wayside shrines to the slaughtered royal couple have sprung up in every neighbourhood and in some of them a photograph of the late King Dipendra was added yesterday to those of his parents.

By the time my plane from Delhi touched down in Kathmandu at 2pm local time, no taxis were available.

Hotels in town said they were unable to send cars because traffic was not being allowed to run. A youth offered himself as porter for the long walk into town. Within a kilometre we hit trouble: a couple of hundred young men, most with their heads shaved in a gesture of mourning, came racing down the road towards me with police on their tails. A bus came roaring in the opposite direction, towards the demonstrators, crammed with people and its roof tight-packed as well, all chanting: "Who killed the king? Who killed the king?"

The bus stopped, they all piled out, and with the youths already gathered they starting flinging bricks and stones at the police, who fired in the air. Why had the mood turned so ugly? A factory manager called Sanjay Dhungani, passing on the street, said: "The government did not make a clarification of what happened on Friday night. We don't believe ­ it is not possible that the crown prince killed all his family for such a reason. He did not have that sort of character."

They express it with greater or lesser degrees of boldness and clarity, but a sullen suspicion has grown among the common people of Kathmandu, which is that their "beloved King" Birendra, and all those on his side of the family have been wiped out in a palace coup, and crown prince Dipendra's marriage difficulties used as a convenient explanation.

No one has produced evidence of a plot; the explanation given directly after the massacre was weakened on Sunday when Prince, now King, Gyanendra said the murders were "accidental", but nobody has come out with an alternative version of events.

For the common people, evidence is immaterial. Look at the result, they say: the whole line of King Birendra wiped out; and his brother, including the new widely feared and disliked Crown Prince Paras Shah, who is said to have run over and killed a popular Nepali musician last year while drunk, now installed in the palace.

The most articulate version of the conspiracy theory is that the new King contrived to get rid of Birendra and his clan because under him the country was going rapidly to the dogs. It was Birendra, characterised as kindly, pliable and not especially intelligent, who in 1990 readily caved in before a popular uprising and agreed to a new constitution that robbed him of his autocratic powers.

Eleven years on, Parliamentary democracy has proved a fiasco (all Nepalis agree on that) and a Maoist rebellion that has taken 1,600 lives is rapidly gaining strength in the hills. Time for a tough new monarch ­ Gyanendra has that reputation ­ and tough allies in the army to stop the rot.

But the people hate what has happened, they hate the explanations of the deaths that they have been given. Yesterday the uprooted street signs and scattered concrete debris littering the capital's roads sent a chilling message to the palace: the popular mandate, on which even autocratic monarchs to some extent depend, has been withheld.

"The poor people don't like this king, he is violent," said the man who helped me with my bags. "We say, you can go out of Nepal." So who would be king instead? "We don't need a king. We can have a president."

Nearly all yesterday's events took place in private. King Dipendra died in hospital, in circumstances that have not been clarified; the new King Gyanendra was crowned before a small audience of officials, soldiers and media inside the old palace. Afterwards he was borne in carriage drawn by six white chargers to the new palace that will be his official residence, the scene of last Friday's massacre.

Such a public progress would normally be a cause for popular veneration and joy but yesterday the new King, proceeded by scowling soldiers armed with automatic rifles was greeted in almost total silence by stony-faced crowds. As he entered his new residence a solitary voice called out "Long live the King" but failed to elicit a response from the rest of the crowd.

Then the riots began and after hours of violence, a curfew was called from 4pm to 5am. The funeral procession of the late King Dipendra, in stark contrast to the crowds that gathered to watch the royal remains go by on Saturday, passed through streets deserted except for armed soldiers and police with staves.

The setting for the cremation was the same as on Saturday, the beautiful pagodas of Nepal's most venerated Shiva temple, the same ranks of soldiers and officials including Prime Minister Koirala. Ten Brahmin priests in white vests and dhotis carried the dead king's body round the bier. The chief priest also circled the bier three times then set it alight. As on Saturday it was a ceremony of dignity and solemnity as the flames rose from the pyre and a single trumpet sounded Last Post.

But the absence of the masses was palpable. And the sweet aroma of sandalwood smoke from the dead king's pyre was overwhelmed by the stink of burning rubber.