A passport issued to a Tibetan official before Chinese forces occupied the remote region over half a century ago has been found in Nepal, reports said.

Tenzin Tsundue, general secretary of the Friends of Tibet group, said in a statement that the Tibetan government had issued the passport in 1947, according to AFP.

The passport – a sizable sheet of traditional Tibetan paper – was given to then Tibetan Finance Secretary Tsepong Wangchuk Dedhen Shakabpa, who was leading a trade delegation to China, the United States and the United Kingdom, it said.

Shakabpa had given the passport to an Indian friend in 1992 and ended up with an antiques dealer in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, Tsundue said.

It was not known how it found its way into the antique dealer’s hands. It was bought back for US$10,000, using money that was borrowed from a Tibetan monastery in 2004.

Tsundue said some 850 Tibetans — living in exile in India and Nepal — provided donations to repay the monastery. After the target was met, we decided to inform the people of the recovery of the passport, he explained.

The group plans to include the passport in an exhibition “Story of a Nation: Independent, Occupied and Exiled Tibet,” which will be held in India this year aimed at proving Tibet’s former independent status, according to Tsundue.

Articles to be put on display include “postage stamps of independent Tibet, Tibetan currency — notes and silver coins and old photographs of the Tibetan army,” taken in the 1920s, the report quoted Tsundue as saying.