6 days on, kin of tourists missing in Nepal start confronting reality
Times of India | 1 September 2026
Kolkata: Six days after the devastating flash flood in Nepal, families of the 37 Bengal tourists still missing in the disaster zone are getting around to confronting questions they had until now been afraid to even articulate: What if their loved ones are never found?
When does a missing person become legally dead? Can a spouse access a missing husband’s or wife’s bank account? Will insurance be paid without a death certificate? What happens to pension, investments, fixed deposits and property?
For families who have spent the past week calling helplines, chasing embassy officials and scanning photographs and videos on social media from rescue sites, these questions are not about giving up hope. They say they are trying to understand what lies ahead if the search yields no answers.
“We are still praying that they will be found. Until we know otherwise, we cannot think of them as gone,” said the son of a missing tourist who was part of the 32-member group on a Kailash-Mansarovar tour with Kolkata-based agency Chalo Jaai Travel club. “But as per law, the govt usually pronounce a missing person dead after seven years. Do we need to wait till that time to process insurance and other claims?”
The daughter of another missing tourist, whose last location was pinged at the Nepal–Tibet immigration centre at Rasuwa, said she has almost given up hope of their miraculous escape, especially since the area around the immigration centre was the worst-hit.
“What happens if the bodies are never found? My father was head of the family and everything is in his name starting from properties to bank accounts, insurance and pension. I don’t know what to do now. If the body is found, we can still have a certificate and proceed with other formalities,” she said.
The questions are particularly pressing for families where the missing person was the main earning member. A relative of a missing person from Hooghly said, “He was the main earning member of the family. What will happen to his child and wife? If the bodies are not found and these people are not declared dead, how can the families get death certificates to process insurance or access bank accounts? Life needs to move on for the rest of the family.”
Under Indian law, a missing person is presumed dead only after he/she has not been heard of for seven years. Even when there is strong evidence that a person was caught in a catastrophic event, relatives said the absence of a body or formal death certificate can complicate claims relating to insurance, bank accounts, pensions and succession.
During the 2013 Kedarnath flash flood, over 4,000 persons were reported missing. The ministry of home affairs (MHA) and Registrar General of India had then issued an SOP allowing state administrations to issue provisional lists of missing persons presumed dead after a fixed deadline of 45 days rather than seven years. RBI and finance ministry had directed banks and insurers (LIC) to waive the seven-year waiting period and settle claims based on a missing certificate issued by designated district officers/sub-divisional magistrates. A signed ‘letter of indemnity’ was taken from the nominee promising to return the funds if the person was found alive later.
During the 2021 Chamoli glacier disaster, when more than 136 workers and individuals went missing inside tunnels and downstream rivers, the state had used emergency provisions under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act. Public notices seeking objections were published in newspapers for 30 days. In the absence of objections, death certificates were issued within months to process state ex gratia compensation, PF payouts and insurance.
During the Bhuj earthquake and 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, insurers had opened special camps in affected regions, settling death claims based on certified local survivor lists and municipal disaster survivor registers without requiring standard civil court intervention.
Bengal govt officials said they are awaiting instructions from Centre on how to proceed in this particular case.
For some families, however, these legalities remain secondary to a far more immediate anguish. “People are telling us to prepare documents and contact different authorities. But how do you start doing that when you are still waiting for a phone call saying they have been found?” said the daughter of a missing couple while breaking down over a phone call.