KATHMANDU: Gyanendra, the brother of King Birendra, was crowned in a hastily convened ceremony at the old Monkey Gate Palace - the traditional seat of the ruling Shah dynasty yesterday.

Birendra's son and heir Dipendra died yesterday after being in a coma since Friday night's massacre.

Drizzle fell on the ceremony as an elderly royal priest placed a white-plumed golden crown on Gyanendra's head.

Clad in traditional Nepali dress, the 54-year-old king sat on a raised golden throne with a carved head of the king cobra. He later left in a royal chariot drawn by six white horses led by a military band and red-liveried cavalry.

Rioting broke out in Nepal's capital yesterday just hours after the new king was crowned.

Armed police used teargas and batons to hold back an angry mob surging towards the royal palace clamouring to know how King Birendra, Queen Aishwarya and six of their closest relatives were killed on Friday night.

Authorities quickly imposed an overnight curfew and warned police could shoot anyone caught violating it.

Although newly crowned King Gyanendra promised a full investigation, Nepalis said they were angry that no-one had yet come up with a convincing explanation for Friday's bloodbath. Officials first blamed the Crown Prince, who was fatally wounded and died yesterday, and then said the royals died after an automatic weapon accidentally exploded.

Youths, many with heads shaved in the Hindu mark of mourning, burned tyres and shouted slogans demanding the truth.

Several hundred people on motorbikes, carrying big portraits of the king and queen, briefly joined the mob at the palace and then whizzed off again to another part of the city.

Soldiers were brought in to guard the palace gates, and the crowd retreated behind police barriers, leaving a litter of shoes and slippers on the street.

He was to be cremated later yesterday in a funeral , from which the curfew was expected to keep all but official mourners.

"During the curfew period, people should not go out of their homes or compounds," the Kathmandu district administration office said in a notice read over state radio. "It will be enforced from 4 pm (1015 GMT) today until Tuesday morning."

"If anyone violates the curfew, police can imprison them for one month or even shoot," the radio said.

Officials had initially suggested that Dipendra had shot his family after what media reports said was a family row over his choice of a bride. But they later said they did not know what had happened behind the walls of the palace.

Dipendra had been proclaimed king despite the coma on Saturday and on his death yesterday, Gyanendra was named Nepal's third king in four days.

The late king, cremated along with his wife and family on the banks of the holy Bagmati River on Saturday, enjoyed great popularity in Nepal, particularly since he ceded absolute power in favour of a British-style constitutional monarchy in 1990.

Analysts say Gyanendra will have to work to establish himself as a new pillar of stability in the country of 22 million people.

Mana Ranjanj Josse, a journalist who has written extensively on the royal family, said Gyanendra was a close confidant of his late brother but was a very different person.

Agencies via Xinhua