KARACHI - Senior leader of Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), Rauf Siddiqui, appeared before the anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Saturday in Baldia factory fire case.

MQM workers Rehman alias Bhoola, Zubair, and others also appeared before the ATC. The court recorded statements of five witnesses of the incident. Witnesses told the court that a fire ‘suddenly’ erupted at the factory and they jumped out of window to save their lives.

Heirs of four of the deceased victims said they came through TV channels that factory was caught in blaze. ‘When we reached there, charred bodies were being taken out of the factory,’ they said.

The heirs of the victims said police took a few days to return bodies of their family members.

The ATC sought more eye-witnesses to record their statements on Jan 23.

On Jan 16, the court had recorded the statements of 13 more witness, including five survivors of the inferno, in the Baldia factory fire case and summoned more witnesses.

Earlier, a German court, on January 10, had threw out a lawsuit by Pakistani plaintiffs against clothing retailer KiK over a deadly 2012 fire at a Karachi garment factory, saying the statute of limitations had expired.

The blaze at the Ali Enterprises factory, or Baldia Factory Fire, had killed 258 people in one of Pakistan’s worst industrial disasters.