A senior IPS officer of 1975 batch, Radha Vinod Raju has been appointed as the first director general of National Investigation Agency (NIA).

The recently formed NIC would deal with terrorist attacks, anti-national activities and plane hijacking incidents and hostages by terrorists. NIC was formed after the recent attack on country's financial capital, Mumbai by Pakistan based terrorists.

Mr. Raju maintains a successful record of a dedicated and hardworking police officer who also investigated the case of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and worked under Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up under the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Union Home Minister had been constantly looking for a new NIC chief to control ever increasing terror attacks in India. Raju was working as the Vigilance Commissioner in Jammu and Kashmir at the rank of Additional Director General before his selection as new NIC chief.

Two other officers including Jharkhand cadre IPS officer A P Singh and Haryana cadre officer S C Sinha were also in the race and Raju emerged as personal choice of Home Minister for this highly important post. He will head NIA till January 31, 2010 or until further orders by government. Home Minister, P Chidambaram said, "He has been requested to join immediately and quickly begin recruitment."