Calcutta, April 7 :     He is the dead man walking. Nizamuddin, 'declared dead' seven months ago, just couldn't take it anymore. On Thursday, he landed up at the doorstep of the deputy commissioner of police (detective department), Narayan Ghosh to prove that he was 'alive'. 'It's a strange case,' said Ghosh. 'This person just walked up to me and complained that no one was ready to accept he was alive. I have never encountered such a case before.' The bizarre chain of events culminating in Thursday's twist in the tale can be traced back to 1996 when Nizamuddin and Mohammed Akhtar Mollah were among a group of 11 black belts picked by their martial arts teacher M.M. Fateh for a trip to Japan. Their inability to cough up the Rs 2 lakh each required to make the trip, forced them to opt out at the last moment. But there was no stopping the unscrupulous Fateh. He took their passports and replaced Mollah's photo with that of his brother Mohammed Tahir and Nizamuddin's with that of accomplice Mohammed Iqbal. So, Tahir and Iqbal made the trip to Japan, masquerading as Mollah and Nizamuddin, respectively. Iqbal, who had taken up a job as a construction labourer in Higochi Hencho, was killed in a road accident on August 12, 1999. Going by the passport of the deceased, Nizamuddin was declared dead. Iqbal's folks, too, hushed up the case. Fed up of living with the tag of a dead man, Nizamuddin finally told Narayan Ghosh the whole story. Following the complaint, karate teacher Fateh was arrested on Friday morning. The ministry of external affairs has also been alerted.