PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Three people died Wednesday during violent protests in two cities over caricatures of the Muslim prophet Muhammad published in Western newspapers.
   Demonstrators continued to ransack foreign companies and franchises across the country as the death toll in protests this week rose to five.
   Pakistani authorities said two people died Wednesday here in Peshawar, capital of North-West Frontier Province, while one person was killed in the city of Lahore.
   In Peshawar, an 8-year-old boy was slain by a stray bullet, police officials said, while an electric cable that was snapped by gunfire killed a 25-year-old man, police said.
   A doctor at one of the state-run hospitals in the city said 50 people were brought to the emergency ward for injuries. Four police officers also suffered injuries when tear gas shells exploded in their hands as they prepared to fire them at the mobs.
   In Lahore, a Punjab University employee was slain in crossfire between students and police.
   Caricatures mocking Muhammad were originally printed in a Danish newspaper in September. But the cartoons were reprinted recently in several Western countries by publications whose editors insist they are defending freedom of the press. Many Muslims view such images as blasphemous.
   Students from ''madrassas,'' or Islamic seminaries also joined the protesters.
   Editors removed
   
    The editor in chief of a student-led newspaper serving the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been suspended after printing cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad that have led to violent protests in the Middle East and Asia.
   Editor Acton Gorton and his opinions editor, Chuck Prochaska, were relieved of their duties at The Daily Illini on Tuesday.