Chanting crowds. Bloody faces. Rubber bullets and metal pipes. Teenagers and police officers. These are the elements flooding the streets of Bangladesh right now.

The government is rapidly trying to shut down internet access to protesters and prevent any images or video from being released that might shed light on what’s going on — so, naturally, the information coming out is limited. While some may say this is an obvious admission of guilt, the tactic has been known to work in other countries when trying to keep the international community from paying too much attention — more importantly, when protesters are using social media as an effective tool to rally and protest, taking this tool away can be extremely damaging to their cause.

So what started all of this?

AP Photo/A. M. Ahad

Two students in Dhaka, Bangladesh‘s capital city, were killed recently when hit by a bus. Bangladesh has long been plagued with notorious public transportation, and these deaths seemed to be the straws that broke the camel’s back.

Students began flooding the streets in protest for a better, safer public transportation system. The protests were so strong in numbers that it essentially began to shut the entire capital off from the rest of the country — standing in major intersections or on main roads has eliminated much of Dhaka’s day-to-day operations.