A ten-second clip on Instagram ended nine years of anguish for a family in Sahibganj, Jharkhand. Relatives recognised their long-lost son, Yaseen Sheikh, who had gone missing in 2017, in the short video, setting off a search that finally brought him home.
He went to meet friends in 2017 and never returned
Yaseen Sheikh had gone to Narayanpur in 2017 to meet friends but never came back home. When their son suddenly disappeared, the family immediately filed a missing person complaint with the police and kept searching on their own as well. Years passed without a single lead, and with every passing year the family's hope began to fade. Nearly nine years later, a smiling young man resembling Yaseen suddenly showed up in a reel filmed in a village in Kerala, and the moment they saw it, the family recognised his face.
In Kerala, Yaseen had become 'Rashid'
By the time he was found in Kerala, Yaseen's identity had completely changed, and he had come to be known there as 'Rashid'. He was living at a care centre run in association with an NGO in the Kottappara area of Kozhikode district. It emerged that back in 2017 itself, local residents of Cheruvadi village had spotted an unknown young man wandering around the area. They alerted the police, following which he was produced before the District Child Welfare Committee. He appeared to be quite young at the time, so the committee placed him in a care centre run with the support of the Social Justice Department. Neither his real identity nor any trace of his family could be established then, so he continued living there.
A reel became the bridge back to his family
As the years went by at the care centre, Yaseen grew older and began taking part in social and cultural programmes held in Kerala. During one such event, a video of him was made into an Instagram reel, which soon went viral and was watched by more than 10 lakh people. That reel somehow reached Yaseen's relatives. Looking at the young man's face in the video, they suspected he could be their missing brother. The family then began gathering information about him through social media itself. Using contact numbers and identity-related details, they got in touch with acquaintances of the family present in Kerala. Once the identity was fully confirmed, Yaseen was finally told about his family.
A 2,500-kilometre journey begins nine years on
With his identity confirmed, the path opened for Yaseen to travel to Jharkhand and meet his family. Now around 35 years old, he undertook a journey of nearly 2,500 kilometres from Kerala to Jharkhand to see them again. After nine long years of waiting, the moment he finally stood before his family was an intensely emotional one, and joy swept through the household. Yet the celebration was also tinged with loss, since Yaseen's mother had passed away in 2023 and could not live to see her son return home.
