KATHMANDU: Police today arrested Tul Prasad Sherchan, the person who claimed to have masterminded the royal massacre, from Himanchal Hotel at Sundhara. Sherchan was arrested by a special police squad at 4:00 am, informed SP Nawa Raj Silwal, in-charge at Metropolitan Police Range Hanumandhoka, Kathmandu. He added that the police were investigating into his claim. Sherchan, who is now in police custody, is said to have financed Janamanch Weekly published from Kathmandu. Organising a press meet in the capital on Tuesday, Sherchan had drawn the attention of the public by claiming that he had engineered the plot of the royal massacre stating that he was the chief of the Royal Intelligence Bureau during King Birendra's reign. 'Birendra amassed national property in foreign banks instead of utilising it for the welfare of the poor people of the nation. I was even imprisoned for 38 months when I had requested him to invest money received as international aid in the country,' claimed Serchan, adding that such actions of the king had compelled him to plot his death. Serchan also claimed that he had a video tape of the massacre in his possession to verify his claim. However, the authenticity of his claim is yet to be verified. Refuting his claim, an aide of the then king said that the the Royal Intelligence Bureau had been scraped in 1969. 'How can Serchan make such claim when Birendra had become the king in 1972 and the RIB was scraped three years ago,' he said. Birendra along with nine other royal family members were assassinated in the gruesome massacre of 2001.