Remember watching Bollywood films of 1980s and 90s where a person used to return from the dead, years after their family had friends mourned their loss and moved on?

It seems fiction has met reality in Bihar's Muzaffarpur. It so happened that a 49-year-old man, presumed to be dead by his family, returned home on the day his family was observing his Terahvin (a ceremony conducted on the 13th day to mark the final mourning day after the death of a person).

The incident left locals as well as near and dear ones of the man bewildered and deeply puzzled.

It was later discovered that the man,identified as Sanjeev Kumar and was mentally challenged, had just gone missing.

On August 25, Sanjeev Kumar went missing after which his family filed a police complaint. A few days later, the police found the body of an unidentified man near the Gandak river in Muzffarpur.

The body was sent for post-mortem at Shrikrishna Medical College & Hospital, Muzaffarpur (SKMCH). It was then Sanjeev Kumar's father went to the hospital and claimed the unidentified body to be that of his son. He brought the body home and cremated it following which they started to observe the 13-day mourning period.

"On August 25, he went missing then we filed the report in the police. Later, we got to know about the body. We claimed the body as our son. We brought the body with us and cremated it. We are very happy now that our son is back," Ram Sevak Thakur, father of Sanjeev Kumar told news agency ANI.

A similar incident happened in July when a man from Karnataka returned home after his family had conducted the 11-day post-death mourning rituals.

The man identified as Shivanna, a resident of Shankha village of Karnataka, had left home after a tiff with his wife. The wife had then filed a police complaint.

The local police after two days found a body near the bus stand and called up Shivanna's family to identify the body. Since the face was unrecognisable, Deepa (Shivanna's wife) refused to accept the body saying the shirt on the body was not what her husband wore while leaving the house. The family, however, refused to believe Deepa and claimed the body after which it was cremated.

In 2018, a family from Aadikkolli in Wayanad were left shocked when a 48-year-old member, presumed to be dead, returned home 15 days after his funeral.