Officials from the Pune cyber police said on Sunday that Sushil Dadarao Khodwekar (43), the IAS officer arrested on Saturday in the TET-2019 malpractice case, is proving a hard nut to crack during his custodial interrogation. The police seized his cellphone and took out mirror images of the same so that forensic experts could carry out a data dig out.

“The objective is to establish the persons with whom he was in contact with. The data related to the TET, which he may have deleted, and other such information,” an officer associated with the probe told TOI.

Police said Khodwekar, arrested from Thane on Saturday morning, did not divulge much information during the recording of his statement in custody.

A senior police officer told TOI, “Khodwekar has mostly responded with silence to the questions posed by us during his custodial interrogation. Now, we are focusing on gathering the digital and documentary data against him.”

“During his tenure with the state education department, Khodwekar was in touch with Maharashtra State Council of Examinations (MSCE)’s commissioner Tukaram Supe, GA Software’s director Pritish Deshmukh, and more importantly with consultant to the education department Abhishekh Savarikar,” the officer said.

In December last year, the cyber police arrested Supe, former MSCE commissioner Sukhdeo Dere (61), Deshmukh, former manager of GA Software Ashwin Kumar (49) from Bengaluru, Savarikar and others in the case.

“While interrogating Supe, it was revealed that Savarikar had prepared a list of over 300 candidates and passed it on to Khodwekar,” the officer said.

“Khodwekar gave it to Supe and Supe made the necessary changes in the marks and answer sheets of the candidates in the list,” added the officer.