Feroz-un-Din Mir from Bihjama village in Kashmir’s Uri district has claimed to the the oldest person alive in the world.
Mir says that he has a government certificate proving that he was born on March 10, 1872. If we go according to this certificate, the 141-year-old Mir will become 26-year elder than Misao Okawa, the 115-year-old current record holder.
If Mir’s claims are found to be true, then he will also become the oldest person to have ever lived by overtaking Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 at the age of 122.
Lost: Vikramjeet disappeared on May 6 after his mother fell asleep at a bus station after 30km journey to hospital
Last October, Mr Ragav broke his own record by having second son Ranjeet, now nine-months-old, when he was 96, with wife Shakuntala, 60.
Photographs of the family were beamed all around the world and images of their small house in the tiny village of Kharkhoda, in Haryana, 64km from the Indian capital of New Delhi.
But the family are bereft since their son disappeared.
Mr Ragav said: ‘We’ve been searching for him every day. I feel helpless. He is our first son. We love him dearly. I don’t know why or how he has disappeared.’
His wife travelled to the nearest hospital with Vikramjeet because had been suffering from a fever on May 6.
Tired after the 30km bus journey, she fell asleep on a bench inside a busy bus terminal with her son in her arms.
Happier times: Ramjeet Raghav hit headlines across the world when he fathered Vikramjeet, aged 94
According to a report in Kashmir Life, Mir, who is married to a woman in her eighties, has already outlived four other wives.
Jeanne Calment from France is the oldest person to have ever lived. She died at the age of 122 years, 164 days in 1997.
Struggling with poor eyesight but Mir can still walk with support of his family members.
While narrating his extraordinary life, Mir tells about his business trips to Pakistan before partition.
Mir told that he followed his father’s footsteps to become a fruit and nut trader and would often accompany him to Pakistan’s capital Karachi.
At the age of 18 he got married for the first time in 1890 and stayed in Pakistan with his first wife until her death in early 1900s.
Mir told, “There were no boundaries between India and Pakistan at that time. It was easy to go to Muzaffarbad than to Srinagar.”
Following death of his first wife, Mir returned to India and settled at his birthplace Bihjama village, where got married to his other four wives.
Jiroemon Kimura had the title of the world’s oldest living person until last month when he died aged 116.
His grandson Abdul Rashid told that Mir was at best of his health untill ten years ago when his health and memory suffered after an eye operation.
After the death of Jiroemon Kimura, who was born on April 19, 1897 the title of the world’s oldest living person had passed to 115-year-old Okawa, from Osaka in Japan.
According to the government records in Japan, the country had more than 50,000 centenarians in 2011.