An unusually high birth rate of twin children in a village called Umri in Allahabad has left researchers and doctors in a fix. Out of every 1,000 children born here, 45 are twins, the reasons for which is yet to be established.
Umri is believed to be 250 years old. There are 108 twins in this village as of now, aged between 6 years to 80 years. The spurt in the birth rate of twins here began 80 years ago.
Mohammad Rehan’s family, one of the 250 families residing in Umri, has two pair of twins. He has a twin brother and he is father to twin daughters.
Umri villagers believe that it is god’s miracle that parents in Umri bear not one but two children at a time.
To figure out how so many twins are being born here, government took blood samples of villagers, however, the report of the findings still remains a mystery.
On being asked, Allahabad ADM RN Gupta said he had no knowledge of such a village. “If this is true, the village deserves to be in the Guiness Book of World Record. We will work towards it,” he said.
Meanwhile, as election season has drawn in, polling staff are also facing problems in identifying when twins come to the booths to cast their vote. There is no scientific way of distinguishing them from each other. In such cases, voter ID cards have proven to be of great help.
