I, V. Khosla, the abovenamed deponent, do hereby solemnly affirm and state as under: 

1.                  That I am a Chartered Accountant and have been in practice since 1971 in New Delhi.

2.                  That I reside with my family at D-984, New Friends Colony, New Delhi since 1978.

3.                  That my residence is situated on the main road which links Ring Road with the Surya Hotel-Okhla main road and that my house is approx. one kilometer from the Ring Road on the Western side of the main road.

4.                  That there have been and are several establishments of Sikhs close to my house which are described in a rough map drawn and attached to this affidavit as Annexure-A.

5.                  That on the first of November, 1984 I was sitting in the drawing room of my house with my brother and two clients when around 9.30 AM there was a sudden commotion and noise from the main road.  We rushed out of the house and saw a huge milling crowd on the road extending right beyond Bharat Nagar Village on the Southern side of the road and beyond Timur Nagar on the Northern side.  The number of the people on the road could well be in thousands.  They appeared to be from either the villages near our colony or from “Jhuggi-Jhompris.”  I was standing on the road or on the terrace of my house for most part of the day upto about 6 PM and witnessing the happenings outside.      

6.                  The crowd nearer to the dry cleaners and Ishwar Sweets shop was trying to attack the said shops with brickbats.

7.                  I saw one policeman in uniform on the road in front of my house. He shouted as if he was urging the crowd to disperse but no one appeared to be interested in listening to him and after sometime he went away. I also saw another policeman who was on the road, South of Ishwar Sweets and was throwing stones alongwith the crowd at the Sikh shops.

8.                  After nearly an hour around 10:30 P.M., the crowd suged forward and started to break open the steel rolling shutters of the shops with crow bars and hammers. The shops were set on fire and the goods were thrown on the street or otherwise destroyed. I did not see any looting of the shops at this stage but only destruction including the clothes in the dry cleaners shop.

9.                  While the breaking in of the shops was going on, some persons in the crowd had attacked and destroyed the taxi stand next to the local shopping centre. Some taxis parked behind the multi-storyed building had also been set on fire by this time. Several vehicles, trucks, vans and motor cars had also been set on fire by the mob on the main road as well as behind the multi storyed building. The mob also climbed over the walls of the Gurdwara and set it on fire. The bunglow of a Sikh in Tmur Nagar was also burnt by the mob. By this time it was nearly 1 P.M. and the sky was overcast with smoke from the burning matters and flak and ashes were falling over the road and on the terrace of our house.

10.             Between 1 P.M. and 3 P.M. the crowd perceptibly thinned down. Around 3 P.M. I saw some people carrying cans. Several people had now invaded the residential house of a Sikh behind the local shopping centre. They pushed out two cars from the drive way of the bungalow and parked them near the parking lot of the shopping centre. They took nearly fifteen minutes to collect material to place underneath the vehicles to which they added some kind of fluid from the cans and set the cars on fire. While this was going on dozens of people had started to loot and plunder the house. I saw a large number of people going in and coming out of the house carrying household goods like clothes, toys, mattresses, radios, two-in-ones etc. No one appeared to be interested nor any attempt was made to snatch anything from anyone. I saw a person who appeared to be a labourer, walk across the road from the house with a large two-in-one, radio-cum-stereo, hand over the same to another person and go back for more loot. Around 4 P.M. the house was set on fire. I could see smoke rising from the other areas of the colony also from my terrace.

11.             During this time the crowd had also started breaking open the steel shutter of the Sikh electrician shop and the goods lying inside the same were looted and carried away by the crowd and the shop itself was damaged.

12.             I had tried to telephone the Fire Brigade and the police during the day but their telephone were continuously not available.

13.             By around 4:30 P.M. to 5 P.M. most of the crowd had melted away.

14.             Around 3:30 P.M. I had heard the siren of a police jeep and saw the same with some police personnel pass in front of my house and round the back of the local shopping centre without halting with the siren blowing all the time. The siren of the jeep had created an immediate impact as most of the looters could be seen trying to run away. But the police jeep passed away quite fast and the crowd assembled and started looting again.

15.             I had not seen any weapons with the crowd like guns or swords but a few people were carrying iron rods, crow bars and iron ‘sariyas’. I saw some people breaking boundry walls to collect bricks and attack the shops with the same in the morning. However, after 3 P.M. I had seen groups of people carrying fluids in cans which they were using to burn vehicles and houses.

16.             Most of the residents of the bunglaws of the colony had come from time to time during the day but had not stayed on the road for long. Being on the main road, I could witness the happenings from the terrace of my house or from the road where I was going out from time to time during the day.

17.             In the evening a false rumour spread in the colony that the Sikhs had collected in a Gurdwara on Ring Road and were arming themselves with the intention to attack the houses of Hindus in our colony. As my children were already scared and had been crying after seeing the looting and burning we decided to move to a safer place outside the colony as children were feeling very depressed at these sights.

18.             Next day when I visited my uncle Capt. G.S. Singh’s house on the back of our house, he told me that he had given shelter to some Sikhs who were in hiding in the garage of his house. My uncle is a Sikh. He told me that several Sikhs were hiding in the houses in the neighbourhood including in the houses of the Hindus. The houses of several Sikhs on the back of our home were not attacked as the mob had concentrated on burning and looting in the area of the colony opposite our house and had not gone to the back of our house.

19.             The mob made no attempt to attack our house or the houses of shops of other Non-Sikhs in the area near my house.

20.             No slogans of any nature were used by the mobs seen by me at any stage during the day. Individuals were, however hurling abuses at the Sikhs on top of Ishwar Sweet Shop.

21.             Other than the two policemen referred to above and the sortie of the police jeep I did not see any police or Fire Brigade persons throughout the day.