All eyes on palace for Nepal king's eviction

Nepal's government said yesterday it has started an audit of palace property after an historic assembly abolished the monarchy and gave Hindu 'god-king' Gyanendra a two-week eviction order.
Kathmandu was abuzz with speculation yesterday that ousted monarch Gyanendra had made a midnight exit from Narayanhiti Palace but his aides dismissed the reports and said he has no "immediate" plans to leave the country.
A private television channel showed pictures of few vehicles moving out of the pink-hued palace and claimed that Gyanendra had moved out, hours after protesters demanding his eviction clashed with the police outside the building.
But Gyanendra's personal secretary Pashupati Bhakta Maharjan refuted the reports and asserted that Gyanendra was still residing there.
"It is totally false, Gyanendra is still in the Narayanhiti palace," Maharjan told PTI over phone.
Kunti Shahi, member of Constituent Assembly representing pro-palace Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal, said Gyanendra will stay in Nepal and he "has no immediate plan to move out of the country".
RPP Nepal is the only party that voted against the motion passed by Nepal's 601-member Constituent Assembly Wednesday night to abolish the 240-year-old monarchy and declare Nepal a republic.
"It is the responsibility of the government to provide security to the royal family members and to arrange for their stay," Shahi told PTI.
While some reports said that Gyanendra might shift his residence to Nirmal Niwas, where his son Paras is currently residing, others claim he is looking for another home. The Nagarjun Palace on the outskirt of Kathmandu may be an option for the King to shift temporarily.
The ousted king has kept a studied silence behind the high walls of his pink-hued Narayanhiti palace, although the royal flag has come down from over the heavily-guarded complex.
"An official letter has been dispatched from the government asking Gyanendra Shah to vacate the palace," Information Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara told AFP.
"A high-level committee has been formed to prepare the details of the property inside the palace. All the property will be transferred to national property," he added.
A constitutional assembly, dominated by former rebel Maoists, voted late Wednesday to abolish Gyanendra's 240-year-old Shah dynasty -- capping a peace process that ended a decade-long civil war.
Some 13,000 people were killed in the insurgency launched by the Maoists in 1996 to install a communist republic in the world's only Hindu kingdom.
The royal palace in Kathmandu is set to be turned into a museum.
An estimated 1,500 soldiers guard the king, but Nepal's army -- seen as a bastion of royalists -- said they will comply with the decision.
For now, the palace and its surrounding roads are heavily guarded by riot police. Demonstrations have been banned, but revellers celebrating Nepal's new republican status skirmished with police Thursday on the road leading to the complex.
Nepal has been brimming for weeks with rumours over the king's plans, with each and every departure from the palace in recent days -- including a weekend trip to his summer home and a drive to his sister's house for tea -- watched with bated breath.
Gyanendra, considered by loyalists to be a reincarnation of a Hindu god, ascended to the throne in 2001 after most of the royal family were slain by a drugged, drunk, lovelorn and suicidal prince.
But the new king failed to win the support of the public, many of whom believed conspiracy theories linking him to the killings.
His unpopularity deepened when he sacked the government and embarked on a period of autocratic rule in early 2005. Mass protests led to a landmark peace agreement in 2006 that led to the king being increasingly sidelined.
Many ordinary Nepalese are delighted to see the back of the dour, unpopular king as well as his son and would-be heir, Paras -- who is widely loathed for his reported playboy lifestyle in one of the world's poorest countries.
International reaction to the monarchy's demise has focused on calls for Nepal's government to end months of political in-fighting and concentrate on lifting the mountainous, landlocked country out of poverty.
While the United States is not yet prepared to strike the Maoists from its terrorist blacklists, Washington has reversed its previous policy of not talking with the group's leaders.
Britain, Nepal's former colonial ruler, sent its congratulations after the assembly's first session.
Foreign Office Minister Mark Malloch Brown called it "another step toward the democratic and stable future that the people of Nepal justly deserve.”