A gun that was traced in the market recently. Telegraph picture

Patna, Aug. 6: All that glitters is not gold, especially when it comes to guns in Bihar. A new collection of guns traced in Patna has revealed that more a product shines, more costly it is. The illegal arms makers in Bihar have found the secret to sell their products.

With the men in uniform catching hold of many miscreants in the illegal arms trade of late, the recovered pistols and guns, which though are country-made, appear sophisticated and sleek, almost like their original counterparts.

Moreover, all of them have got a “Made in US” or a UK tag on them. According to senior police officials, the practice is a ploy of the traders to get a double price of their products.

With many traders having forced to sell their weapons in the neighbouring states owing to the police raids, the foreign tag easily gets them double the money.

The Patna police have been successful is seizing as many as 130 firearms in the past six months during the raids and arrests, the records state. And most of the arms seized bear the tags, the police said. Patna city SP, Manu Maharaj, told The Telegraph that the tags added to the price.

“These weapons, particularly pistols, look sophisticated. They are not like the earlier country-made ones. The finishing is fine and they look like products out of the ordinance factory in Kanpur. It can be said that these illegal arms makers have diversified themselves and have better equipment and machines needed to make weapons,” the officer said.

On August 4, the Patna police nabbed one Devanand Sharma alias Manish Kumar on Tuesday for arms smuggling from the Peerbohor police station area of the capital.

Two pistols, four magazines and Rs 11, 000 in cash were recovered from him. These two guns bore the “Made in US” tag.

Before this, on July 18 too, the police had nabbed Chandrashekhar Azad alias Commander and two others from the Mahabir Temple area on the basis of a tip off.

A cache of arms, including three pistols with “Made in US” tags, six magazines and seven live cartridges were recovered from the three.

Police sources said that Munger and Nalanda were the epicentres of the illegal arms trade in Bihar at present.

Most of the arms supplied to different places in and around Bihar were made in these two districts. However, the city SP added that some places in rural Patna also had such arms factories.

Arms from Bihar are now going to neighbouring states like Orissa, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and others. And these foreign-made tags are a threat for the buyers. A pistol, with a market cost of Rs 20,000 can easily fetch Rs 40, 000 or even more if they have these tags and look sophisticated, police sources said.

Earlier, during the arrest of Chandrashekhar Azad on July 18, the criminal had confessed that they were selling these arms in the other neighbouring states of Bihar mainly to expand their business. Patna senior superintendent of police, Amit Kumar Jain, said that the arms recovered were made very tastefully in Munger and their modern look could easily fetch them a very high price.