Former King accorded rousing welcome in Bhaktapur (Pictures)

Former King Gyanendra Shah was accorded a warm welcome at Bhaktapur where he had ostensibly gone for pilgrimage on Sunday.

He visited Taleju and a Gaurav temple in the city, but huge crowd turned out there transformed it into a political event.

‘Raja aau, Desh bachau’ was the slogan repeatedly raised and echoed by the crowd, but the former King neither addressed the crowd nor spoke anything to the media.

A throng of people assembling there had carried the national flag and pictures of former King Gyanendra Shah, Queen Komal Shah and late king Prithvi Narayan Shah. Many present there had come in local and ethnic attire.

Later, he spent a couple of hours at a hotel in Sallaghari where he met around 200 people in small groups.