Ex-army officer who quizzed Kasab is AAP candidate from Balachaur

Brigadier (retired) Raj Kumar, who has been given the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) ticket from the Gujjar-dominated Balachaur segment of Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar, is a highly decorated officer, who had quizzed Pakistani militant Azmal Kasab, who was the only militant captured after the 26/11 Mumbai attack.

Raj Kumar, who joined the AAP immediately after his retirement in January 2015, belonged to the Garshankar area but he is settled in Balachaur town with the family.

Associated with his roots even during the service, he is using his experience of his posting as the director, army recruitment, in Amethi, to run ‘recruitment academies’ in Balachaur for providing free coaching to aspirants of the Army to around 300 boys and girls at one time.

“I am glad that the AAP has given me an opportunity to serve the people of my region. I would contest not to become an MLA but to become a soldier to change this rotten system,” says the retired army officer, while talking to HT.

His bio-data submitted to the AAP says that he was appointed as a nodal officer from Army headquarters to analyse details of the Mumbai blasts by Pakistani terrorists in November 2008. “Visited blast sites the very next day and interrogated Mohd Ajmal Kasab, the only surviving Pakistani terrorist,” says the retired army officer.

“When I was posted in Delhi just before my retirement in the end of 2008, I was impressed by Arvind Kejriwal’s ideology and his working style. In February 2016, I joined the AAP and started working as a volunteer. I never knew that they will ask me to contest polls,” said the retired Brigadier.

Raj, who belongs to the Gujjar community, has a tough task ahead as the SAD MLA and chief parliamentary secretary Chaudhary Nand Lal has won this seat for four consecutive times and has never lost.