UMERKOT, Oct 4 An old man of the Thar desert village of Mehndri Jo Par, some 70 kilometres from here, is said to be 148 years old and it is claimed that he is the world's oldest living person.

Talib Samejo was born in 1861. He has a family of 402 members, including sons, daughters, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and all of them are alive.

Talib says he never fell ill, never drank alcohol or tea. He is in good health and recounts events even of his childhood.

Asked about the secret of his health, he said “In our times, we used pure food, milk, butter and ghee; worked in fields and travelled long distances. Fertiliser and pesticides were not used and we used grain produced from rain-fed crops.”

He said he had suffered the Chhapno drought of 1899 and Chhano drought of 1936 while the establishment of Pakistan was only a recent event.

According to him, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was people's politician who got prisoners of war and Sindh's area freed from India.

Asked how old he was, Samejo said he had seen six generations.

He may be the oldest living person in the world because he is a super-centenarian (a person who has reached the age of 110 years).

A claim about a super-centenarian has to be verified by an international body dealing with longevity research, such as Gerontology Research Group or the Guinness Book of World Records.