Pune (Maharashtra), Jan 29 (IANS): In a shocking turn, the Pune Police have arrested an IAS officer in connection with the sensational statewide Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) that was unearthed last year, officials said here on Saturday.

The IAS officer is Sushil Khodwekar, currently posted as Agriculture Department Deputy Secretary at Thane and functioned with the same designation in the School Education & Sports Department when the alleged TET irregularities were being perpetrated.

Khodwekar, 43, of the 2011 IAS batch in the Maharashtra cadre, was produced before a local court and remanded to police custody till Monday, January 31, with the total number of arrests going up to more than 30 so far comprising officials and private persons.

Besides Khodwekar, the Pune Police had earlier arrested Maharashtra State Council of Examinations (MSCE) Commissioner Tukaram Supe, former MSCE Commissioner Sukhdeo Dere, education consultant Abhijit Sawrikar, and Director of G. A. Software Pritesh Deshmukh, which had been awarded the contract for the TET and other government exams.

Police investigations have revealed that the marks of at least 7,880 candidates appearing for the TET in 2018 and 2020 had allegedly been 'increased' by manipulating the entire evaluation process, against huge monetary gains.

The sleuths found that the accused persons serving the company had access to the TET website which was misused for the huge malpractices, with Khodwekar, Savrikar and others allegedly working in tandem.

The probe has revealed that amounts ranging from Rs 35K - Rs 200K were collected from the desperate candidates to hike their TET scores and improve their job prospects.

Raids have been carried out at various locations of officials, coaching classes, agents, some candidates and assets worth over Rs 7 crore have been seized.

The police are likely to submit a list of all such 'tainted' candidates to the state government for further action and further arrests are not ruled out, besides linking the probe with other government examinations or paper leaks that occurred last year.