Former PIA Employees Admit to Using Fake Degrees to Get Jobs and Promotions

Four former Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) employees, including two pilots and a stewardess, have admitted to securing their jobs or promotions through fake degrees, Dawn has reported citing court documents.

These individuals, who had either retired or been terminated before being charged, were booked by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in 2022. This followed an audit that uncovered 457 PIA employees had been hired using forged academic credentials.

Initially denying the allegations, the accused sought pre-arrest bail from a special court, which was granted. However, after being formally charged, they pleaded guilty and requested to record their confessional statements.

Judge Tanveer Ahmad Sheikh informed the defendants that they were not obligated to confess and warned them that their statements could be used as evidence leading to convictions. The court granted them 30 minutes to reconsider their decisions. Despite this, all four insisted on proceeding with their confessions.

In her statement, Nazia Naheed, a former air hostess from Karachi, admitted to submitting a fake BA degree to secure a promotion. She joined PIA on July 5, 2001, on a five-year contract but was terminated on April 26, 2014, after her degree was found to be forged. Naheed also revealed that she was unemployed and had lost her husband in a road accident.

Another accused, Mohsin Ali, confessed to presenting a fake BA degree when he applied for the position of co-pilot in 2006. Despite the job requiring only an intermediate qualification, he admitted to using the fake degree and was terminated in 2014 after its inauthenticity was uncovered.

Arif Tarar, who started his career as a peon in 1979, admitted to using a fraudulent FA degree to secure a position as a data entry operator in the same department. He retired in 2018 after 39 years of service, but the audit revealed his degree was bogus, leading to his implication in the 2022 FIA investigation.

The fourth individual, Kashan Aijaz Dodhy, a former cadet pilot, confessed that he had submitted a fake BSc degree when he joined PIA on November 13, 1995. Although the job required only an FSc qualification, he presented the degree as an additional credential. His forgery was detected during a verification process, and he was terminated in 2019.

All four expressed remorse for their actions, apologized, and placed themselves at the mercy of the court.

Based on their confessions, Judge Sheikh convicted them and sentenced them to imprisonment until the court session concluded, along with imposing fines of varying amounts.