More than 200 military police on strike over pay peacefully left a Brazilian state legislature Thursday ending a nine-day standoff after the arrest of their leader, officials said.

"The state assembly was vacated early this morning... Their leader, Marco Prisco, has been arrested," said government spokesman Robinson Almeida, after the end of the standoff in Salvador, capital of Bahia state in Brazil's northeast.

A Bahia government official said the police mutineers "surrendered because they were isolated in society and within their own military police force."

Rio's state legislature meanwhile approved a 39 percent increase in pay for police, firefighters and prison guards, hoping to head off a police strike there a week before the start of its Carnival celebrations.

"We will have a peaceful Carnival. We have confidence that the security forces will be responsible," deputy Andrea Correa, the government leader in the assembly, said in remarks quoted by the Globo G1 news website.

The strike in Bahia unleashed a massive crime wave in which more than 120 people were murdered in and around Salvador, Brazil's third largest city, in just nine days, more than twice the usual homicide rate.

Some 3,500 soldiers and elite police were sent to the area to restore order ahead of Salvador's famed Carnival celebrations later this month.

In her first comments on the crisis, President Dilma Rousseff lashed out at the strikers and ruled out any amnesty for criminal acts against people or public order.

"In a democracy, protests are legitimate, but there are ways of expressing them. I do not consider that increased murders on the streets, burning buses, wearing hoods... is not a proper way" of protesting, she said.

The Brazilian president was referring to charges by Bahia Governor Jaques Wagner Wednesday that some hooded police strikers on motorcycles roamed Salvador streets, firing into the air and stopping buses to threaten passengers.

Rousseff also pledged that the federal government was prepared to send troops to restore order in any state facing similar unrest.

Army Lieutenant Colonel Marcio Cunha told reporters that Prisco and another strike leader had been arrested.

A government official insisted the end of the nine-day occupation of the Bahia legislature meant "the strike is over."

Nevertheless, the military police mutineers and their supporters insisted the strike was still on.

The strikers are demanding a pay hike, better working conditions, and amnesty for Prisco, a political opponent of Bahia Governor Jaques Wagner.

They also want amnesty for 11 other police facing arrest under a court order, at least four of whom have already been arrested.

The unrest also sparked fears among federal government officials that the strike might spread to the states of Rio de Janeiro, Para, Parana, Alagoas, Espirito Santo and Rio Grande do Sul.

Press reports on Wednesday quoted police intelligence as saying the situation in those states was "explosive."

On a court-ordered recording of telephone conversations between the Bahia strike leaders, aired by Globo television, Prisco is heard ordering that a national highway be blocked.

In another recording, the union leader of Rio firefighters Benevenuto Daciolo urges that the strike be extended to other states to disrupt Carnival.

"I have a general assembly today (Thursday) in Rio, with the start of a general strike also in Rio and it is likely that there will be no Carnival in Bahia or Rio this year," Daciolo is heard saying in a recording released on Globo's G1 website.

Press reports said Daciolo was arrested on his return to Rio from Salvador.

But Prisco told AFP through one of his lawyers, Jonas Benicio, that "the television recordings are not complete (and) were edited."

Wagner, a member of Brazil's ruling Workers' Party, had agreed to meet the strikers' demand for a 17 percent pay hike, but ruled out any amnesty for strikers who engaged in "criminal acts."

The poorly paid military police -- a state force distinct from the federal police in Brazil -- is responsible for maintaining law and order.

They are called "military" because of their organizational structure, but are not part of the armed forces.