About 1,000 people rioted late Tuesday in Gohawa after a villager found pages of the Quran in a drain and alerted other people. Announcements were made over a mosque loudspeaker for protests, said Amir Zulfiqar, chief of police in the nearby city of Lahore.
Gohawa villagers, joined by people from nearby towns, protested on a main road, damaging about 10 cars while ransacking shops, a gas station and an abandoned cinema, Zulfiqar said.
On Wednesday, about 1,000 police were deployed to keep the peace, he said. No arrests have been reported in the violence.
Throwing the Quran or its pages on the ground is considered insulting in Pakistan, a deeply conservative Muslim nation.
Under the country’s laws, insulting the Quran or the Prophet Muhammad can be punished with the death sentence.
In recent days, Islamic groups have held protests in many cities in Pakistan to condemn the publication of cartoons of Prophet Muhammad in newspapers in several European countries.
