Three people died, including a young boy, during violent protests in Pakistan on Wednesday against cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) published in European newspapers, security officials said. The boy was killed when a bullet fired during a protest hit him in the head in the northwestern city of Peshawar, but it was not clear if the shot was fired by police or protesters, a security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. A man was killed when an electricity pole fell down during a protest in the same city, the official was quoted as saying by Reuters. Another man died in crossfire between police and students at the Punjab University campus in the eastern city of Lahore, where a police went to rescue an officer who had been abducted by protesters, Police Superintendent Hussain Habib Gill said. Gill said it was not known who had fired the shot that killed the man. He said the officer had been rescued, but students had broken both his legs. The protests came a day after two people died during violent protests in Lahore on Tuesday. The fresh demonstrations in the city came despite a ban on protests in Punjab announced by its chief minister, Pervez Elahi, who said on Tuesday that violators faced "an iron hand".
