Kidnapped girl’s mother asks Queen to raise the issue with India’s leaders

On Sept. 29, 2016, two-year-old Insiya Hemani, a Dutch citizen, was violently taken from her grandmother's home in Amsterdam's Watergraafsmeer in an abduction arranged by her father. Now, her mother is appealing to Queen Máxima to lend her support for the ongoing case during a visit with Indian leaders.

Nadia Rashid, the mother of the now eight-year-old girl, has been fighting to get her daughter back ever since her forcible abduction by father Shehzad Hemani. As far as is known, the little girl is still in India, where her father took her. Hemani and his cousin Imran S. were tried, convicted and sentenced in absentia by a Dutch court, and multiple court rulings have ordered Hemani to return the girl to her mother.

Rashid addressed the queen in a letter and a video, saying, "I believe that your support and your commitment can bring Insiya back to the Netherlands, home." King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima will receive Indian President Ram Nath Kovind and his wife in a multiple-day visit beginning on April 4, which will celebrate 75 years of friendship between the two countries.

"How beautiful it is when this state visit and this friendship are sealed with the return of Insiya to the Netherlands," Rashid wrote in her letter to the queen, according to AT5. "As a mother, I am counting on you. But more importantly, Insiya is counting on you."

Queen Máxima raised the issue of Insiya's kidnapping during a previous visit with Indian leaders in 2019, according to AT5. Although an international arrest warrant was issued against Shehzad Hemani, he has not been taken into custody in India or elsewhere.