A small village in India has about a hundred pairs of twins, mostly same sex and 90 per cent born in the last 20 years. No one can explain the phenomenon.
Scientists from around the world are flocking to a small Indian village to try to find out why an extraordinarily large number of identical twins are being born there.
One in 10 births in Mohammadpur Umri involve twins, most of them identical. Looking at the faces of Umri’s residents, you can be forgiven for wondering if you have stepped onto the set of a sci-fi film on cloning. Globally, the odds of a woman giving birth to identical twins is one in 300.
The range is wide – from 77 years to one-month-olds, this unique village is full of human clones. Mohammedpur Umri is a dusty and remote village situated behind the Indian Air Force (IAF) base at Bamrauli, some 80 km from the holy city of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. And has attracted global attention for its highest density of identical twins in the world. Out of a population of about a thousand in the village, nearly 120 were born identical twin.
The unique monoclonal twinning phenomenon has shot Umri onto the global scientific map. Scientists from all over the world, including the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, have descended on the village to decipher the genetic and nature’s biggest mystery. But none have so far been able to crack it.
The ‘genetic goldmine’, as Umri is now popularly known, has now drawn the attention of the prestigious Institute of Medical Biology (IMB), Singapore. The institute’s principal investigator, human embryology, Dr Bruno Reversade, a top geneticist and a world renowned identical twinning expert, was recently in Umri with his Indian colleagues to collect DNA and other samples to study the genetic and environmental factors (diet, pollutants etc) that could be the cause for this unusual phenomenon.
Across the globe, Dr Reversade is working on unusual human pedigree to characterise a gene or elucidate a molecular pathway which directs the phenomenon of natural monoclonal offspring in human species. He suggests that certain genes may actively control the birth of human clones. “But, in case of Umri, I do not rule out possibility of external factors, including environment, diet, pollutants etc making a contribution in the high birth rate of identical twins in the village,” he claims.
Dr Reversade has collected samples of saliva from 10 pairs of twins and their parents including their finger-prints to unravel their DNA. Besides, they have also collected soil and water samples from the village pond, hand-pumps and wells to study the impact of environment on the ‘special genes’ responsible for Umri’s high twinning rate. “Sometimes, chemicals induce twinning,” he affirms.
Recipient of a prestigious award from Branco Weiss Foundation, Switzerland, Dr Reversade is currently working on “human pedigree and monoclonal humans” and he finds Umri to be the “final destination” for his research to unravel the mystery behind identical twins. He is also seeking worldwide help for the social and economical development of Umri.
“Identical twinning in humans and animals in Umri seems to be the most baffling puzzle in my career. It could be genetic or environmental. I can’t say anything for sure at this stage but, of course, six months from now we will come to some conclusion,” he claimed.
Indian laws do not allow foreign institute’s to take biological samples outside the country without permission, thus the IMB team has tied up with a prominent Indian research lab for conducting the tests.
Village elders claimed that identical twinning in Umri dates back to 1931 when the first twin babies were born to the Ahmed family. Though one of them died after birth but, fortunately, Mehmood Ahmed (now 77), the other sibling, is still alive to confirm this. “My father had told me that my twin brother had died within few days of our birth,” claims Ahmed.
Villagers attribute this phenomenon to “the grace of god and something unique in the water and soil of the village.” Believe it or not, even chickens in Umri lay two-yolk eggs and a buffalo recently gave birth to twins. “In the past many cows have also given births to twins in the village,” says Mohammed Kaiser.
Studies show that humans are not the only specie capable of producing clonal offspring. Another mammal — Armadillo — has mastered this technique and invariably gives birth to quadruplets from a single fertilised egg each time it reproduces.
Currently, Umri boasts of having 15 identical twins aged between one-month to 40 years. About five of them have migrated and settled outside the village. There would have been many more but infant mortality and inadequate medical facilities have caused many deaths of identical twins in the village. Though the village has been adopted by the Indian Air Force, it still lacks basic infrastructure and amenities. Farming remains the main source of the villagers’ livelihood.
However, Umri’s most famous identical twins are 40-year-old Mohammed Hassan and Mohammed Rehan. Interestingly, a ‘comedy of errors’ led to Umri’s uniqueness beng exposed to the world. Once the two were visiting the famous Sangam (where rivers Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati meet) in Allahabad, a city close to their village. Rehan stopped at a beetel shop to buy paan. A few minutes later Hassan too visited the shop and asked for paan. The shop owner immediately laced the paan with the same ingredients he had offered Rehan.
But Hassan refused to take the same, asking for the one he likes. This led to an altercation between the two. Hassan then told the shop owner that he must have mistaken him for his identical brother.
A bewildered shop owner refused to believe him until Rehan appeared. A vernacular press reporter who witnessed the incident scooped the story when Hassan announced that his village was full of identical twins such as them.
“That was 1998. Since then we have stopped counting the number of visitors who have flocked to the village to report or conduct studies,” says Hassan. The twin brothers share one single driving licence. They often confuse their parents, wives, children, relatives, friends and even cops whenever they dress alike.
Together they have 14 children. Only Rehan’s second wife has had a miscarriage of twins about four months back. The number of twinning has been particularly high in the last 10 to 15 years in the village. Mukhtar Ahmed’s both daughters have given birth to two pair of twin sons. His second daughter too has had twin sons — Sahil and Wadil — only a month ago. Unfortunately, his eldest daughter died soon after giving birth to identical twins — Kaif and Jais. Both are four-year-old now and being raised by Ahmed.
Nikhat and Farhat (11), Abu Saad and Maria (7), Nuzhat Saleem and Farhat Saleem (9), Mehmood Ahmad and Mohammed Ahtesan (18) and Allaudin and Mohammed Zahir are among some of the other pairs of twins in the village. A majority of Indian scientists believe that Umri’s mystery could lie in the fact that the village has a closely bred Muslim population suggesting that inter-marrying within families may have led to the high rate of twinning.
But the assumption may be flawed. Scientists may have been concentrating on the Muslim factor, ignoring the fact that even Hindu families have shown a similar trend. As many as four Hindu families have had twins in their families. Rekha and Suman (26) were born in Umri. They are now studying in Kanpur where their families shifted a few years ago.
Manoj Yadav in Umri had twin daughters. Muskan (7) is alive while her sister died soon after birth. Similarly, Vaasu Yadav and Chedi, a barber in the village, too had identical twins but they did not survive. Moreover, the phenomenon continued among villagers even after they migrated to other places. Mehmood Ahmed’s son Ghulam Ali had twins in Lal Bihare village. Unfortunately, both died.
“So it is wrong to say that twinning was happening only in Muslim families as they are closely bred when the same was happening among Hindu families too in Umri. Moreover, occasional twin births have been reported from families who have migrated from Umri,” points out Dr Reversade.
Teachers at the CSV Convent, Bamrauli, where some of the village twins study, find it difficult to differentiate between them. So Nuzhat and Farhat have been nicknamed Rose and Jasmine in school. “Their appearance is so striking that we asked their parents to send them to school with their names embossed on their dress,” recalls their teacher Seema.
The Indian custom of dressing up identical twins alike only makes matters worse. And then there are the usual funny stories of mistaken identity, even mothers falling victim. Noorista Bano, mother of Nikhat and Farhat, would often beat the wrong one leading to some fun for the other. “My mother slaps my sister for all my mischief,” a giggly Farhat tells us.
Abu Saad and Maria are the only exception in the village. They are dizygotic (DZ) or non-identical twins, which is about thrice higher than the occurrence of monozygotic (MZ), which take place only once in 300 births when a single human embryo splits in two giving birth to a pair of monoclonal babies of the same sex.
CCMB scientists, who collected blood samples from eight pairs of twins and their parents for DNA analysis claim that the rate of monozygotic twinning in Umri is one in 45 pregnancies that is six to seven times higher than anywhere in the world. The only other instance of such an occurrence was in a Scandinavian village about three decades ago. Yet Umri rates three to four times more than the village of Scandinavia, they claim.
In one of the families, CCMB scientists claim, there were two twin pairs, both girls, suggesting MZ twins. The maternal uncle of their mother too had twins suggesting familial occurrence of twinning in the family.
Dr GR Chandak of the CCMB, who is heading the research in Umri, claims that out of 120, they could count 33 pairs of twins, out of which many were single due to the death of the other.
“Out of total eight blood samples collected, seven appeared to be monozygotic based on their same sex and appearance,” says Dr Chandak.
He claims that the CCMB is close to unraveling the Umri mystery. “A larger analysis comparing the genomes of the twin pairs is underway and we will soon announce the results to solve the mystery,” says Dr Chandak.
The CCMB has also engaged a sociologist and prepared a questionnaire to collect data for understanding social, demographic and other relevant aspects of twinning in Umri and compare it with a neighbouring village.
The IMB scientists from Singapore have been trying to draw a parallel between Umri and Jordan where a large consanguineous family was reported to have had 16 pairs of twins in five generations. “Analysis is underway and it may throw some light on making of monoclonal babies,” says Dr Reversade.
The outcome of the CCMB and IMB research in Umri is certainly going to add a new chapter in the world of genetic studies.