Father of Abducted Raïa Pleads for PM’s Help in India
A Belgian father who has never met his six-year-old daughter is making an emotional appeal to Prime Minister Bart De Wever to raise her case during his official visit to India this week. Davy De Witte, a 45-year-old consultant from Waasmunster in East Flanders, is asking De Wever to put his daughter Raïa’s name on the table during a scheduled three-hour meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Thursday.
“Put the name of my daughter Raïa on the table,” De Witte said in an appeal reported by VRT NWS. “Prime Minister, bring my child back from India,” he added in an interview with HLN.
A Six-Year Legal Battle
De Witte’s ordeal began in 2015 when he entered a relationship with Nisha, an Indian woman adopted as a baby by a Ghent family. Nisha was still legally married at the time, but the couple ran a neighborhood supermarket together in Brasschaat for about two years. When Nisha became pregnant in April 2019 — a planned pregnancy, according to De Witte — the future seemed bright. But that summer, Nisha abruptly left him and returned to her legal husband.
In December 2019, Nisha gave birth to Raïa prematurely but kept the birth secret from De Witte, registering her husband as the legal father on the birth certificate. A DNA test later confirmed De Witte as the biological father, setting off a years-long legal battle that ultimately recognized him as both biological and legal father with parental authority.
“In court she literally said: ‘You were just a donor. Get lost,’” De Witte recalled to VRT NWS.
The Flight to India
In February 2025, just two days before De Witte was scheduled to meet his daughter for the first time in a supervised visitation setting ordered by the court, Nisha fled with Raïa to India. The mother and daughter were internationally flagged at the time, yet they managed to leave the country after a duty magistrate lifted the alert, accepting Nisha’s explanation that she was traveling to India to find her biological roots.
De Witte filed a complaint against the public prosecutor’s office in Ghent, but an investigation by the parket-generaal concluded in February 2025 that no assessment error was made. “After verification by the public prosecutor’s office in Ghent, it appears that the assessment and interpretation of the available information during the duty service was not done carelessly,” Advocate-General Francis Clarysse said at the time, as reported by HLN.
De Witte remains unconvinced. “Either you are very naive as a public prosecutor’s magistrate, or you’re part of the conspiracy,” he told VRT NWS.
A Daughter Seen Only on YouTube
In August 2025, De Witte accidentally discovered a YouTube video from a local Indian television station in Kerala state, showing Nisha being followed in her search for her biological mother — with Raïa visible in the background. It was the first moving image he had ever seen of his daughter.
“I was completely shaken when I happened to see that fragment pass by on YouTube,” De Witte told HLN in December 2025. “This is the first moving image I ever got to see of my daughter.”
He described watching Nisha talk about her need to find her biological mother as “cringe-worthy,” given that she refuses all contact between Raïa and her biological father.
The Diplomatic Dimension
De Wever’s visit to India — the first by a Belgian prime minister in nearly 20 years — is primarily focused on trade and the recently concluded EU-India Free Trade Agreement, according to The Brussels Times. But De Witte sees an opportunity to raise a humanitarian issue alongside the commercial agenda.
India is not a party to the Hague Child Abduction Convention, making the standard international mechanism for returning abducted children unavailable. Belgium and India have no bilateral agreement on child abduction either, leaving parents like De Witte with few legal options.
De Witte points to a precedent from the Netherlands: the case of Insiya Hemani, a Dutch girl abducted to India in 2016 at age two and a half. Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten raised the case with Modi during his visit to the Netherlands in May 2026, as documented on Wikipedia.
“What the Netherlands can do, Belgium should also be able to do,” De Witte said.
The PM’s cabinet has confirmed receipt of De Witte’s email, and Belgium’s Foreign Affairs department has contacted him, saying they await the court ruling on the parental abduction case. The criminal case against Nisha is scheduled to appear before the criminal court in Ghent in October 2026.
What’s at Stake
For De Witte, the fight is deeply personal. “I don’t want Raïa to grow up with lies,” he told HLN. “She’s been told since birth that her mother’s husband is her father, while that’s not true. That man can be there, of course. Many stepfathers play an important role. But one day this will come out. One day Raïa will Google herself.”
He acknowledges the legal and diplomatic obstacles are significant. “I ask that De Wever request PM Modi that India helps locate my daughter,” he said. “For clarity: I don’t want the Belgian government to interfere in an ongoing judicial procedure.”
As De Wever prepares to meet Modi in New Delhi, De Witte hopes the prime minister will carry more than trade documents in his briefcase. “If Modi hears that there are already two such cases, it might get things moving,” he said. “I’ve always had a strong desire for children. I will keep fighting for her.”