May 31, 2008	Saturday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 25, 1429

KATHMANDU, May 30: Nepal’s government said on Friday it had started an audit of palace property and sent an official letter telling King Gyanendra to leave after a historic assembly abolished the monarchy.

The ousted Hindu ‘god-king’, given a two-week eviction order, 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.

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, which also involves turning the royal palace in Kathmandu into a museum.

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.

Kishore Shrestha, a newspaper editor whose publication regularly runs scoops on palace affairs, said the ousted king’s son Paras moved his belonging out overnight but added that “the king is still inside.”

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. His unpopularity deepened when he sacked the government and embarked on a period of autocratic rule in early 2005.—AFP