The police arrested 81 people, mostly migrant workers from Odisha, in Surat late on Friday night on charges of rioting and violating the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897.
The workers resorted to violence after many of them were not paid their salaries for March and also denied permission by the authorities to go back to their native places because of the ongoing 21-day nationwide lockdown that started on March 25 to contain the spread of coronavirus disease (Covid-19), officials said.
