The Brazilian government accused striking police in Bahia state of sowing panic amid fears that the strike over pay may spread and fuel a wave of violence only days before the start of Carnival.

Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo, in an interview with O Estado de Sao Paulo published Wednesday, spoke of an orchestrated campaign of violence around the country by disgruntled state military police seeking higher pay and better working conditions.

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 have no relationship with the armed forces.

Cardozo said the military police were terrorizing people to pressure state governments, like the one in Bahia, into meeting their pay demands.

"We are witnessing increased vandalism during these strikes," Cardozo told the Sao Paulo daily, as striking armed policemen and their families continued to occupy the Bahia legislature building in the state capital Salvador.

"There are growing attempts to sow panic among the population, something which is unacceptable on the part of police officers," he said.

At least 120 murders have been reported in the Salvador metropolitan area since the strike, more than double the daily average in 2011 in Brazil's third largest city. Robberies and looting are also sharply up.

Among those killed were eight homeless people, including a woman who was breastfeeding her baby. Bahia Governor Jaques Wagner suggested that striking police officers might be linked to those killings, which civilian police are investigating.

"Homeless people were killed. I don't want to accuse anyone but this is part of a tactic," he told Globo television.

Wagner cited a police document "which makes clear that the idea is to frighten everybody, including the governor."

He charged that some hooded police strikers on motorcycles roamed the streets, firing into the air and stopping buses to threaten passengers.

One of those killed was Marcos Vinicius Santos, 22, shot dead late Monday. Grieving relatives went to retrieve his body from the morgue on Wednesday.

"We suspect that it was a problem with drug dealers, nobody saw anything," said the victim's aunt, Crispina Monteiro de Santos. "You have no idea how things are in Bahia, in Salvador... there is too much violence."

Criminals "are taking advantage of this strike to murder, because they know there are no police officers on patrol," she told AFP.

The strike raises concerns as Salvador, home to 2.5 million people, prepares to welcome hundreds of thousands of tourists for its famed Carnival celebrations later this month.

Salvador is also one of the 12 Brazilian cities to host football games in the 2014 World Cup.

Federal government officials fear the unrest may spread to the other states, including Rio de Janeiro, where policemen called a strike for Friday.

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

In Rio, a bill to give higher pay for the police was scheduled to come to a vote in the state assembly Thursday.

Since last year, military police in five northeastern states and in three northern states along with Rio firefighters have staged strikes. In all cases, agreements were reached to grant amnesty to the strikers.

Salvador authorities meanwhile urged tourists to stay indoors and postponed the start of the school year.

Wagner blamed the impasse on a "minority group bent on spreading the strike to other states" and vowed security would be maintained during Carnival with the dispatch of military police officers from other parts of the state.

Authorities said a third of Bahia's 31,000-strong police force was on strike.

Some 3,500 soldiers and elite police officers have been deployed in Salvador to restore order.

Wagner said he was willing to meet the strikers' demand for a 17 percent pay hike, but ruled out any amnesty for those strikers who engaged in "criminal acts."