They needn't have bothered. The guns -- a carbine and 9mm pistol -- seized from Bhagat turned out to be fake! Made fromm door latches and pipes, Bhagat would use them to scare his victims, from whom he extorted various sums.

``Ultimately, the joke was on us since all the firearms and ammunition were duds,'' said Senior Inspector Arun Awate. Bhagat has been arrested and charged under Section 420 (cheating) and Section 120 read with Section 170 of the Indian Penal Code (impersonation) and remanded to police custody till August 2.

Paraded at a press conference today, Bhagat explained that he frequently used sundry items to fabricate these dudweapons, adding that the ones seized on Monday had cost a mere Rs 5,000. The cartridges, he revealed, had been made from ballpoint pen caps and metal tubes of various sizes to suit the caliber of various weapons.

The extortionist, who had studied in Dr Ambedkar College, Wadala, was first arrested in 1994 for car theft. Since then, he has been named in over a dozen cases including extortion, theft and impersonation of a police officer. Some of these are still pending in several police stations in the city.