Indian PM Modi will be pressed on abducted Amsterdam girl Insiya Hemani during visit

Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten plans to discuss the abduction case involving Insiya during his meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will visit the Netherlands this weekend. The Cabinet is also dispatching a civil service delegation to India to try to facilitate a reunion between Insiya and her mother.

Insiya, who was 2 years old when she was abducted by her father in September 2016, has remained in India ever since. The case has been discussed many times in diplomatic talks between the Netherlands and India, but without success so far. In parliament, Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen admitted there is growing “frustration” within the Dutch government over the lack of progress.

Deputy Prime Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz said the case had largely been handled as “a consular issue” in previous talks with India, but stressed that this approach is clearly no longer effective. Speaking after the Cabinet meeting, where she replaced Jetten, Yeşilgöz said the Netherlands wants strong business ties with India, but added that progress on Insiya’s case must also be part of the relationship.

A Dutch delegation will be sent to India that can address the case “in a truly substantive way,” the deputy prime minister said. The delegation must try to arrange a meeting between mother Nadia Rashid and the child. “And that too is really a very different approach from what we have done in the past.”

The case was previously discussed “at a high level” in 2018 when then-Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte visited India and met with Modi. Dutch ministers and officials have continued to raise the issue during subsequent visits.

The Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, supports the Cabinet’s move and on Wednesday adopted a motion asking the King to raise the case with Modi. The King will host Modi for lunch on Saturday. The royal couple has previously expressed deep sympathy for Insiya’s mother.

The Netherlands and India are seeking closer ties through a planned strategic partnership, but the Caroline van der Plas-led BBB argued that cooperation should be paused until Insiya is returned. Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen rejected that suggestion as too drastic, stressing that diplomacy remains the only realistic path toward a solution.

Since the last meeting between the heads of state of the two countries, the Dutch Supreme Court affirmed the convictions and sentences of five suspects found guilty of kidnapping Insiya Hemani. Among them is her father, Shehzad Hemani, who was tried in absentia and sentenced to 8.5 years in prison as the ringleader who orchestrated the violent abduction nearly a decade ago.

His appeal to the country’s highest court was due to not being afforded the right to participate by video call when he refused to return to appear before Dutch criminal justices. A suspect does not automatically have a right to join a hearing by videoconference when he “voluntarily waives his right to be present or attempts to evade trial by absence,” the Supreme Court wrote in a press release last November attached to its opinion.

“According to the Supreme Court, the suspect’s potential fear of imprisonment if he were to attend the trial in the Netherlands does not alter this,” the court wrote. “With the ruling of the Supreme Court, the convictions and sentences imposed in all five cases are final.”

Former police officer Huibert V. was ordered to serve nine months for surveilling Nadia Rashid, the girl’s mother, on the day of the kidnapping. When Rashid visited her mother to drop off Insiya, he notified the others involved.

Robert B. received a three-year prison term for pistol-whipping Insiya’s aunt with an electroshock weapon, and using that device to a stun a neighbor who tried to intervene.

Hemani, Erik S., and Daniel C. were accused and convicted of taking the girl to Germany by car as part of an elaborate plot to bring her to India. Hemani’s cousin, Imran S., was also convicted in absentia and sentenced to four years in prison, and both C. and Erik S. received the same prison sentence.

The latter was picked up as a fugitive in Riga, Latvia, last month. His daughter, Liz S., was handed a four-week jail sentence and community service order for acting as a getaway driver for her father. Willem V. was given a year in prison for putting the plan together.