The ex-president of the Maldives Mohammed Nasheed, who claims he was forced from office in a coup, said he expected to be arrested on Thursday as protests and violence escalated in the holiday paradise.

Nasheed, the Indian Ocean country's first democratically elected president, told Agence France Presse at his family home in the capital that a court order had been issued for his detention and he anticipated being sent to jail.

The Maldives' ex-president Mohammed Nasheed was injured Wednesday and briefly hospitalized after he was beaten by police during a rally of his supporters in the capital, his cousin told Agence France Presse.

Mohamed Nasheed, who says he was forced from power on Tuesday in a bloodless coup, was injured along with several other members of his Maldivian Democratic Party, his cousin and fellow party member Eva Abdulla said.

The new president of the Maldives called Wednesday for the formation of a national unity government in his Indian Ocean nation even as police and soldiers kept watch over his predecessor at an undisclosed location.

President Mohammed Waheed Hassan, the former vice president, was sworn in Tuesday when Mohamed Nasheed resigned after police joined widening street protests against his government.

The Maldives' first democratically elected president resigned Tuesday after a police mutiny described by his office as an attempted coup, capping three weeks of political upheaval in the holiday paradise.

"It will be better for the country in the current situation if I resign. I don't want to run the country with an iron-fist. I am resigning," President Mohamed Nasheed told a televised press conference.

The prime ministers of India and Pakistan said Thursday they expected to open a "new chapter" at future talks between the rival nations after they met at a regional summit in the Maldives.

India's Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani said their often strained ties were improving, but they declined to give a date for their next meeting.

Religious-linked violence and abuse rose around the world between 2006 and 2009, with Christians and Muslims the most common targets, according to a private U.S. study released Tuesday.

"Over the three-year period studied, incidents of either government or social harassment were reported against Christians in 130 countries (66 percent) and against Muslims in 117 countries (59 percent)," said the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life study.