13-Year-Old Missing Child From UP Rescued Through Telangana Police’s Face Recognition App, Video Goes Viral

In an emotional reunion 13-year-old, Som Soni hugged his mother for the first time in 5 years after getting separated in Assam. A video of the heartfelt moment went viral on social media, where Soni’s mother was seen wrapping him around her arms and sobbing inconsolably, still coming to terms with the fact that her son was alive.

Eight-year-old Soni with autism went missing from Uttar Pradesh’s Handia district on July 14, 2015. A week later, he found his way to Assam’s Goalpara district where he was rescued by the local police and shifted to a child welfare home.

Soni was reunited with his family because of Telangana Police’s face recognition tool, Darpan- which has a database of children lodged at various shelter homes across the country.

The police officials were sifting through photographs of missing children, that is when the software- Darpan used its face matrix feature to accurately match the child’s old photograph with his present picture stored in the database when he was shifted to the child welfare home in Assam.

As soon as the child was identified, police informed the station house officer (SHO) of Handia police station in Uttar Pradesh, who in turn informed the parents about the missing child. They immediately dispatched a team to the child welfare center in Goalpara and found Soni.

“Darpan software developed by our team accurately matched the facial features of the child through his photographs clicked within a gap of 5 years. So even if a person is traced after 10 years, the software will be still able to identify them as the matrix of the face remains the same,” ADGP Swati Lakra said. So far, using the same tool, Telangana police have reunited 24 missing children.

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