The Cuttack station of All India Radio switched off its transmission at 7:45 this morning [July 27], an hour after the “Orissa bandh” to press for the second steel plant started. Fifty pro-bandh volunteers forced their entry into the A.I.R. station, raising threatening slogans this morning. They also cut telephone wires. The Additional District Magistrate, who was on duty, ordered the Station Director to stop the broadcast in the interests of maintaining law and order. The Station Director rushed an officer to switch off the transmitter located 10 miles away. The Magistrate, in his order, said that the circumstances were so serious that unless broadcast was stopped, there was likelihood of grave threat to law and order and bloodshed and danger to life and property. Contingents of the Central Reserve Police posted at the A.I.R. station was withdrawn last night and the Orissa Military Police took over guard duty. It is learnt that last night, a spokesman of the all-party action committee which has organised the bandh, spoke to the Union Minister, Mr. Satyanarayan Sinha over the phone and pleaded with him to close down the A.I.R. station in Cuttack.
