Four former employees of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), including two pilots and a stewardess, have admitted to using fake degrees to secure or promote their positions within the airline, court documents have revealed. The admissions followed an audit that uncovered the use of fraudulent qualifications by 457 PIA employees, leading to an investigation by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in 2022.
The accused individuals, who had already been either terminated or retired by the time the investigation began, initially denied the allegations when they sought pre-arrest bail in a special court. However, after being formally indicted, they all pled guilty and expressed a desire to give confessional statements.
Judge Tanveer Ahmad Sheikh, who oversaw the case, informed the accused that they were not obligated to make confessions, warning them that their statements could be used against them in court. The judge gave the accused 30 minutes to reconsider their decision, after which they insisted on proceeding with their confessions.
Nazia Naheed, a former air hostess from Karachi, confessed that she had submitted a forged BA degree to gain a promotion, which was later discovered during a verification process. She was dismissed from PIA in 2014. Mohsin Ali, a former co-pilot, admitted to using a fake BA degree in 2006, although the position required only an intermediate qualification. His fake degree was exposed, leading to his termination in 2014.
Arif Tarar, who had joined PIA in 1979 as a peon, used a forged FA degree to later secure a promotion to data entry operator. He retired in 2018 after 39 years of service, only for his degree to be found fraudulent during the audit. Kashan Aijaz Dodhy, a former cadet pilot, confessed to submitting a fake BSc degree in 1995, though only an FSc qualification was required for the position. He was terminated in 2019 after the degree was revealed to be forged.
All the accused expressed regret for their actions and apologized, leaving themselves at the court’s discretion. The court found them guilty based on their confessions and convicted them to imprisonment “till the rising of the court” along with fines of varying amounts.
