July 29, 2008	Tuesday	Rajab 25, 1429

RAWALPINDI, July 28: An employee of PIA took the national carrier’s slogan of “Come Fly With Us” to his heart and stole a free ride on PK-781 to Canada this week and sought asylum there.

A source told Dawn that Sarfraz Tanoli, assigned to help the sick and old passengers to board or disembark a flight at the Islamabad airport, used his aircraft access privileges to get into a Toronto-bound PIA 777 on Friday.

The source said the loader slipped into one of the toilets, changed his uniform and remained there until he was sure that the plane had covered a long distance with no possibility of turning back to drop him.

On reaching Toronto, Mr Tanoli contacted the immigration authorities and sought asylum, the source added.

A spokesman for the PIA, Mohammad Latif, confirmed the incident and said experts were investigating on different lines to trace out the channel the helper had used to embark the flight.

“We have been trying to bring him back and to trace the people behind him,” the spokesman said.

A top-level investigation has been launched to ascertain as to how a PIA loader flew to Canada from Islamabad on a scheduled PIA flight and later applied for asylum.

According to the spokesman, there was no deadline for the investigation, however, a report will be sent to the PIA head office in Karachi to fix the responsibility, if anybody’s involvement was proved.

The source said as part of the inquiry, the authorities had been questioning the PIA staffers, who were on duty on Friday, and also examining the service record of Mr Tanoli.