Demanding immediate travel arrangements, migrant workers on Sunday hurled stones at the police and damaged vehicles on a national highway near Rajkot in Gujarat, police said.
Some police personnel and a local journalist were injured in the incident that occurred in Shapar area near Rajkot, about 215 km away from Ahmedabad.
Rajkot (Rural) superintendent of police Balram Meena said 25 migrants were arrested, including a purported instigator, after identifying them through video footage of the incident.
"A group of agitated migrants resorted to vandalism by damaging vehicles on a national highway demanding arrangement from local authorities for return to their native states," a police official said.
Meena said a first information report was registered under various sections of the Indian Penal Code for rioting, voluntarily causing hurt and for attempt to commit culpable homicide.
In another incident, residents of a COVID-19 containment zone in Rajkot district pelted stones at police and damaged some vehicles when the security personnel tried to stop them from removing barricades placed in the area, an official said on Sunday.
Nearly 68 people were arrested after the incident that took place in Jangleshwar locality of Rajkot around Saturday midnight, he said, adding that police lobbed tear gas shells and baton-charged the rioters to disperse them and bring the situation under control.
Locals pelted stones at policemen and damaged vehicles when the security men tried to stop them from removing barricades placed in the area designated as 'red zone', due to a large number of coronavirus cases found there, an official from Bhaktinagar police station said.
People of the locality were upset as local authorities were not removing barricades in their area, even as barricades in some other areas under containment zone were being removed, Bhaktinagar's police inspector V K Gadhvi said.
Police lobbed six teargas shells and baton-charged the mob to control the situation, he said.
Nearly 68 people were later arrested and booked under Indian Penal Code Sections 147, 148 (rioting), 149 (unlawful assembly), 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to public servant) and 353 (assault on public servant ), among others, he said. Security was stepped up in the area to maintain law and order, he added.
