Nepal's crown prince opened fire in the royal palace Friday, killing the king, queen, a prince and five others before shooting himself, a senior military official said.

Crown Prince Dipendra, 30, opened fire and shot all the members of the royal family including King Birendra, Queen Aiswarya and Prince Nirajan, the official said.

According to the source, the shooting was caused by a dispute over the marriage of the prince because his mother, the queen, reportedly objected to his choice of bride.

The crown prince, educated in England, was heir to the throne. Other details were not immediately available.

Nepal was in shock on Sunday as it struggled to come to grips with the murder of King Birendra and seven other senior members of the royal family.

Mystery surrounded the killings as the king's heir, 29-year-old Crown Prince Dipendra, remained in a coma in critical condition. Media reports said that he was clinically dead and being kept alive on a respirator.

Home (Interior) Minister Ram Chandra Poudel initially said the prince gunned down King Birendra, Queen Aishwarya, his sister Princess Shruti, 24, his brother Prince Nirajan, 22, and other royals in a quarrel late on Friday and then turned the gun on himself.

But later Poudel said the authorities did not know exactly how the royals died.

Reports said the queen opposed Dipendra's planned choice of a bride and the prince shot his family after an argument at the dinner table.

The massacre was the latest blow to hit the impoverished nation of 22 million people that has been racked by political instability and a growing Maoist rebellion.

Analysts said it could have a major impact on the political situation in Nepal where Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala is under heavy pressure to quit over corruption allegations. He has faced violent street protests against his rule.

Some protesters who hurled stones at police accused the government of being behind the slayings and along the funeral route cries of "Girija resign" were heard.

In accordance with the constitution, the British-educated crown prince was declared king but because of his condition, his uncle, Prince Gyanendra, the king's younger brother, was declared caretaker king. Gyanendra, a keen conservationist, was away from the city at the time of the shootings.

The bodies of the 55-year-old king and 51-year-old queen were cremated on the banks of the holy Bagmati river in keeping with a Hindu tradition of cremating the dead swiftly.

Mourners Swarm Streets

Hundreds of thousands of mourners packed the narrow streets, some sobbing, some silent in shock at the royal family's gruesome fate + the worst mass killing of royalty since the murder of the last tsar of Russia and his family in 1918 by Bolshevik revolutionaries.

"I never believed this could happen," said an elderly man. "It was the king who protected us from all the unrest in our country. What will happen to our country?"

Although Birendra ceded absolute power in favour of a British-style constitutional monarchy in 1990, he wielded huge informal clout.

Despite his largely ceremonial function, analysts said Birendra, known as the "gentle king", was a key stabilizing figure during Nepal's troubled first decade as a democracy.

Thousands more mourners watched on television as pallbearers clad in white vests and loincloths carried the flower-strewn wooden funeral stretchers the 10 km (six mile) journey from the army hospital where bodies had been kept to the Hindu temple of Lord Pashupatinath.

The procession was led by a military band and hundreds of soldiers and cavalry men on horseback.

The body of the king, revered by many in the nation as the reincarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, was carried by 12 pallbearers around the pyre three times before it was lit. The band played the Last Post and 56 guns boomed a final salute.

Soon afterward, the pyres of the queen, their son and daughter and the other victims of the massacre were lit according to Hindu rites as a pungent aroma of incense filled the air.

Shaved Heads

Civil servants were ordered to shave their heads in a traditional Hindu mark of respect while Nepal began a 13-day period of mourning. Earlier state radio announced the deaths but gave no explanation of the circumstances.

The government ruled out the possibility that Maoist rebels were responsible for the killings and one official said there was no evidence of any group outside the palace being involved in the deaths.

Analysts said the king's violent death, in such unexplained circumstances, was likely to sow deep confusion in the country.

"King Birendra commanded great respect," said Kalim Bahadur, professor of South Asian studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. "He played a key role in promoting democracy and enabling it to take roots in the kingdom," he added.

(China.org.cn 06/03/2001)