He acted in more than 600 films in various languages, including Malayalam, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and English.

The comic professional assassin character called Pavanayi played by Captain Raju appearing in the movie Nadodikkattu developed a cult status in Malayalam cinema.

[7] While working at the company, he started acting in amateur drama troupes like Prathiba theatres in Mumbai.

This made Madhu cast him as the hero in his first home production Rathilayam, which was a movie with A-listers of that era including Soman, Shanavas Rajkumar and Menaka.

Raju's act as the unnamed killer determined to assassinate the Kerala Chief Minister was one of the high points of the film.

Khalid in Vyooham (1990) and Pathrose in Adwaitham (1992) were some of the other noted villain characters portrayed by him during the early 90s.

With the 1994 movie Kabooliwala, he became more selective and his role as Madassery Thampi in Puthukkottayile Puthumanavalan was a clear step towards this.

He became a household name in Malayalam cinema after his brief role as the comical assassin Pavanayi in Nadodikkattu.

[16][17] His character as Karunan Chandakavala (Detective Karamchand) in the 2003 slapstick CID Moosa also got appreciated.

Captain Raju's last movie was the 2017 Mammootty starrer Masterpiece, where he appeared as himself after a four-year break, as he was recovering from a road accident injury.

[18] A healthy, strong man during his youth, who gave increased importance to fitness, thanks to his military career, Raju's health was severely affected by a car accident, which occurred in October 2003 at Kuthiran near Thrissur.

He suffered a massive stroke during a plane journey to New York on 25 June 2018, and was admitted to a hospital in Muscat.

He was buried with full state honours at Puthenpeedika St. Mary's Orthodox Church, Pathanamthitta on 21 September.