A boy from UP goes missing. A quirk of fate lands him in a State-run Children’s home in Assam’s Goalpara. Now the boy in Goalpara and the parents in UP’s Handia are united again thanks to Telangana police. Wondering how Telangana down south has helped parents in North India meet their lost child traced in Assam?

Well! The reason the mother and the lost child are united is Telangana government’s facial recognition software DARPAN. The Telangana police are using this software since 2018 to match the faces of the missing children and also to identify untraced criminals. The police in Hyderabad stumbled upon this boy while matching the faces of missing children. The database from the orphanages and state run homes are being studied and are matched with the photos in the missing children complaints filed across the country.

During one such search-and-match, they used the Darpan software to identify a 13-year-old autistic child found in a state home for the children and realised that he belonged to the UP. Then the Hyderabad police called Handia police and informed them about it. Soon, the parents were informed and they went rushing to Goalpara to identify the kid. Later, the boy was restored to the parents. The boy went missing in 2015 and was found after 5 years. He was seven when he went missing. Now, he is 13.

IPS officer Swati Lakra of She Teams tweeted a video of the reunion of the parents and the child and wrote: "Emotional reunion.. A 13 year old autistic boy child who was missing from Uttar Pradesh since 2015 was traced at a child home in Assam after 5 years, by Telangana Police with the help of DARPAN (FacialRecognitionTool) of @TelanganaCOPs #Technology #Darpan."