Six hundred seventy‐six thalassemia patients from OPD were screened and out of these 310 patients were homozygous beta thalassemia and rest 366 were others like HbE‐Beta, HbS‐Beta, etc. Among the 310 beta thalassemia cases, IVS1‐5(G > C) homozygosity was found in 122 cases. Here, HBE1 is linked to thalassemia.