The World - News from March 11, 1987

Bangladesh was paralyzed by a nationwide anti-government strike punctuated by hundreds of bomb blasts and battles between students and police. Banks, stores, offices and courts closed, public transportation operated sporadically and members of Parliament were forced to sleep in the building. The strike, called by students backed by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party to protest higher public transit fares, turned into a demonstration against the government of President Hussain Mohammed Ershad when a student leader and two companions were killed by a bomb tossed into a university building.