How AI Helped Reunite a Pakistani Woman with Her Family After 17 Years

A young Pakistani woman has been reunited with her family after 17 long years, thanks to a decade-old missing persons report, modern facial recognition tools, and cutting-edge artificial intelligence.

Kiran who uses a single name was only a child when she left her home in Islamabad in 2008 to buy ice cream. She soon became disoriented, panicked, and unable to recall her home address.

“I was crying and lost,” Kiran recalled. “A kind woman helped me and took me to the Edhi Centre in Islamabad because I couldn’t remember anything.”

Just days later, she was moved to Karachi by the late Bilquis Edhi, wife of renowned humanitarian Abdul Sattar Edhi and co-founder of the Edhi Foundation. Kiran has lived in the shelter home ever since, growing up under the care of Bilquis and the Edhi family.

According to Sabah Faisal Edhi wife of the Foundation’s current chairperson, Faisal Edhi several attempts were made over the years to trace Kiran’s parents. Each effort included multiple visits to Islamabad, but all ended without success.

Earlier this year, the Foundation contacted Nabeel Ahmed, a Cybersecurity specialist working with punjab’s Safe City Project a provincial initiative launched in 2018 to enhance public safety through technology.

“We shared Kiran’s recent photographs with Nabeel and whatever little information she remembered about her childhood and neighbourhood,” Sabah explained.

Nabeel took a special interest in the case. While combing through older police records, he discovered a missing girl report filed in Islamabad around the same period. Leveraging the latest AI-powered facial recognition and tracking software, he managed to match Kiran’s current images with those from the old report successfully identifying her family.

Her father, Abdul Majeed, a tailor by profession, traveled to Karachi soon after receiving the life-changing news.

He shared that his family had searched relentlessly for years. “We even published her photo in several newspapers, but no one ever came forward. Eventually, we lost hope,” he said.

When authorities from the Safe City Project contacted him, Majeed said he was stunned and overwhelmed by the possibility of seeing his daughter again.

An emotional Kiran expressed mixed feelings as she prepared to leave the Edhi shelter home. “I am sad to leave my family here,” she said. “But I will always be grateful to Bilquis Apa and the entire Edhi family for taking such good care of us.”

Kiran’s case is not an isolated success. With the Edhi Foundation now working more closely with police departments and Safe City Projects across Pakistan, she has become the fifth girl from the Karachi shelter whose family has been traced using modern technological support.