5-time Nepal PM Surya Bahadur Thapa dead, to be given state honours

Kathmandu/Gurgaon, April 16: Battling cancer, former Nepalese prime minister Surya Bahadur Thapa died late Wednesday night in a hospital near Delhi, doctors said. The Nepal government said the five-time PM will be accorded state honours and tiol mourning will be observed on Friday, the day of his funeral. The 87-year-old Thapa lost his battle to cancer at Medanta - The Medicity hospital in Gurgaon, near Delhi, late Wednesday night, a doctor said on Thursday. He was admitted to the hospital on March 29 and “his stomach, liver, pancreas, oesophagus and intestines were affected,” a doctor told IANS. “Thapa was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. He breathed his last around 11 p.m. on Wednesday. We handed over Thapa’s body to his brother-in-law Sanjay Bahadur Thapa at 11.20 a.m. on Thursday,” the doctor said. Thapa’s family members arrived at the hospital on Thursday and family sources said the body would be taken to Kathmandu where it will be kept at his Maligaon residence in Kathmandu prior to the last rites scheduled for Friday. On Friday morning, the body will be kept at the party office of Thapa’s Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) for paying of last tributes to the departed leader. The body will then be taken to Dasharath Stadium for the public to pay their fil tributes.   (IANS)