Citizen of no nation? Kerala man's Pakistani wife pregnant. Will the baby be considered Pakistani?

Three Pakistani nationals, two of whom are women, were arrested in Bengaluru on Wednesday for illegal migration into India. One of the women is pregnant.

Samira Abdul Rehman, who is married to Kerala-born Muhammed Shihab, is pregnant with their child, police sources confirmed. She will remain in the country for the trial against the three. 

The neighbours at their Kumaraswamy Layout home said that the four were well behaved and rarely spoke, except for Shihab who knew Kannada and behaved normally with others. The Pakistani nationals Samira,  Kashif Shamsuddin and Kiran Ghulam Ali mostly spent their time indoors. Reports say that Kashif worked as a salesman along with Shihab. 
However, a major conundrum will be the nationality of the baby when it is born.

According to Section 3 of the Indian Citizenship Act, 1955, a person can be considered an Indian citizen by birth if one of the parents is a citizen of India and the other is not an illegal migrant at the time of his birth. An illegal migrant is defined as one without a valid passport and other prescribed documents or with a valid passport or other prescribed documents but remains in India beyond the permitted period.

Pakistani Citizenship Act, 1951, states that persons, who migrated from territories of Pakistan to other areas of Indo-Pakistan sub-continent for permanent stay after March 1947 shall also be not considered citizens of Pakistan.

A child is considered a Pakistani citizen if its father or father’s father is a Pakistani citizen and the child is born outside Pakistan.

While the trial for the 3 Pakistani nationals will go on, the fate of the baby will hang in the balance.

• Pakistani Nationals
• Nationality of child
• pregnant