Subhash Tamang of Belbari, Morang, who for the past three years had been trying to prove that he is alive and not dead as declared by the registration of death certificate he holds, has been reissued a copy of his citizenship.

The Morang District Administration Office on Thursday issued a copy of Subhash's citizenship. Chief District Officer Kosh Hari Niraula handed the citizenship’s copy after Subhash's registration of death was annulled on August 10 as per Article 24 of the National Identity Card and Civil Registration Act, 2020.

“There was no need of other proof as Subhash himself was present with the required documents so his registration of death was annulled. He has been issued a copy of his citizenship,” said Niraula.

Subhash had earlier taken his citizenship from the then Kudakaule VDC of Bhojpur district on June 12, 2003. Following the news of his death, Tamang’s relatives had registered his death at Kudakaule on July 22, 2015.

Subhash, a 39-year-old native of Shadananda Municipality in Bhojpur who currently lives in Belbari Municipality in Morang, with his wife and two children had gone to Saudi Arabia in 2003 on foreign employment.

Subhash was declared dead in 2015 after he and his three friends had a car accident on July 10 of the same year.

Two of his friends were pronounced dead immediately while Subhash and Tejendra Bhandari of Dhorpatan in Baglung, were airlifted to Abdul Aziz Hospital for treatment.

Bhandari died the next day at the hospital while Subhash went into a coma.

However, a representative of Hyundai, the company Subhash and his friends were employed with, identified a body at the hospital as that of Subhash’s. The hospital prepared his death certificate with the company’s representative as a witness.

The dead body was sent to Nepal 28 days after its identification.

Three months after the family received the body and conducted his funeral rites, Subhash, who was still at the hospital in a comatose state, regained his consciousness.

After a year and a half of treatment for his injuries, Subhash was sent back to Nepal by his employer. Since then he had been telling the government authorities in Nepal that he is alive and that it was a mistake to have declared him a dead man.