Six months ago he was a living God. Then he became a plain old constitutional monarch. Now King Gyanendra of Nepal has been branded a common criminal.

A government commission compounded his fall from grace yesterday by finding him responsible for a bloody crackdown on the pro-democracy protesters who forced him to give up direct rule in April.

It was the first time that a Nepali monarch — traditionally regarded as an incarnation of the Hindu God Vishnu — had been given an official rebuke.

And it raised serious doubts about the King’s future on the eve of the signing of a peace deal with Maoist rebels who are pushing for Nepal’s 240-year-old monarchy to be abolished.

The five-member commission was set up to investigate the deaths of about 20 protesters and injuries to thousands of others when police tried to suppress what is now called the “people’s movement”.

The panel questioned nearly 300 people, and sent a list of questions to King Gyanendra himself in October. He did not respond.

Yesterday the commission concluded in a 1,184-page report that the King was to blame because he was head of the Cabinet at the time of the crackdown. It called for “a process to formulate a legislature to take action against the King” because Nepali law does not stipulate how to punish a monarch.

The report also blamed about 200 other royalist politicians and bureaucrats, and recommended that action be taken against the heads of the Army, the police and the armed police.

The report was submitted to Girija Prasad Koirala, the Nepalese Prime Minister, and members of the commission said that he promised that action would be taken. “Prime Minister Koirala has assured us that he will begin the necessary process for the implementation of the recommendations in the report,” Ram Kumar Shrestha, a commissioner, said.

But the commission left open the question of whether to prosecute the King and how to punish him if he were to be found guilty. Harihar Birahi, another commission member, said: “It is up to the Government to decide what type of action should be taken.” Mr Koirala has pledged that his Government will spare none of those responsible for the crackdown.

Many Nepalis welcomed the report as a key step in a reconcilation process that appears to have brought an end to the country’s decade-long Maoist insurgency. But others expressed doubts about how its recommendations could be implemented, given the lack of legislation on how to punish a king.

King Gyanendra sacked the Government and assumed direct control of Nepal in February last year, claiming the Government had failed to tackle the Maoists. The rebels and sidelined political parties responded by forming a loose alliance and organising anti-monarchy protests, which culminated in the reinstatement of parliament in April.

The King was stripped of most of his powers, including his command of the 90,000-strong Army and his immunity from prosecution.

This month the Maoists agreed to a peace deal under which they would lay down their arms, confine their fighters to camps and enter parliament and government.

The pact is due to be signed today, although it has been postponed once already because of wrangling over technical details. One is the question of how many seats the Maoists and the seven main parties should hold in the interim legislature. Another is whether the future of the monarchy should be determined in a referendum, or by a special elected assembly.

Centrist parties favour a constitutional monarchy with a ceremonial role for the King; the Maoists want the Crown abolished.

Nepal’s Shah dynasty dates to 1769, when a regional ruler named Prithvi Narayan Shah led an army from the hills and conquered the ancient city of Kathmandu.

The monarchy has been in crisis since Crown Prince Dipendra shot dead his hugely popular father, King Birendra, and eight other members of his family at dinner on June 1, 2001. Dipendra also shot himself, but lived for another three days, and was crowned while in a coma. He was succeeded by his uncle, Gyanendra, who is widely rumoured to have been behind the massacre.

Divine Rule

A formalised idea of the Divine Right of Kings emerged in Europe during the Reformation. King James I said: “Kings are justly called gods, for that they exercise a manner or resemblance of divine power upon Earth”

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