As he climbed the mountain track to the shrine of Mata Vaishno Devi in Jammu this evening, Radha Vinod Raju, the first chief of country's National Investigation Agency, sought the deity's blessings for his new assignment.
 
"This is the most challenging job," he told rediff.com.
 
Born in Kochi on July 27 1949, the 59-year old Indian Police Service officer of the Jammu and Kashmir [Images] cadre is a religious person.
 
Before joining the IPS in 1975, Raju worked as an officer in Bank of India [Get Quote].
 
He is a science graduate from Kerala [Images] and can speak Konkani, English, Hindu, Urdu, Tamil  and Malayalam.
 
Known for his secular credentials, Raju has vast experience of dealing both with routine crime investigations and terror related policing.
 
As part of the special investigating team that probed the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi [Images], Raju established the involvement of the Tamil Tigers in the assassination of the former Prime Minister.
 
He has served both the Jammu and Kashmir police and the Central Bureau of Investigation in various capacities.
 
After joining the IPS in 1975, Raju joined the CBI in 1983. Among the various postings he held in Jammu and Kashmir have been SSP of Jammu district, deputy inspector general of south Kashmir range and the inspector general of Jammu zone.
 
After his return from the SIT set up to investigate the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, he was posted as inspector general of crime in Jammu and Kashmir in 1998.
 
He had another stint with the CBI in 2002 and also became a joint director there before returning to Srinagar [Images] in September last year as the vigilance commissioner of the state with the rank of the director general of police.

His juniors and colleagues know Raju as a modest, low profile, soft spoken person who never loses his cool.
 
"The whole mantra of crime investigation is simple. One must have the eyes and ears to be led from the crime scene to the criminal," he once told this correspondent while commenting on how he solved some of the most complex crimes during his long and chequered career in the state police.

Image: File Photo of Radha Vinod Raju