A young Pakistani woman, missing for 17 years, has been reunited with her family with the help of facial recognition technology and AI. Kiran, now 27, went missing in 2008 when she stepped out to buy ice cream in her Islamabad neighbourhood and forgot her home address. “I was lost and crying. A kind woman took me to the Edhi Centre in Islamabad as I couldn’t remember anything,” she said, news agency PTI reported. A few days later, Bilquis Edhi, wife of the late Abdul Sattar Edhi, founder of the Edhi Foundation, brought Kiran to the Karachi shelter home, where she grew up under Bilquis’ care. Sabah Faisal Edhi, wife of the current chairperson Faisal Edhi, said repeated attempts to trace Kiran’s parents through visits to Islamabad had failed. Earlier this year, the foundation contacted Nabeel Ahmed, a cybersecurity specialist with the Punjab Safe City Project. Using Kiran’s recent photos and limited childhood details, Nabeel accessed a missing-person police report from 2008 and, with facial recognition and tracking software, successfully located her family. Kiran’s father, Abdul Majeed, a tailor, travelled to Karachi to bring her home. “We searched for years, even published her photo in newspapers, but never found her. We had lost hope,” he said. Kiran expressed mixed emotions on returning home. “I am sad to leave my family members here. I will always be grateful to Bilquis apa and everyone at the shelter for taking such good care of me,” she said. She is the fifth girl from the Edhi shelter whose family has been traced with the foundation now working closely with police and Safe City Projects across Pakistan.
