Directorate of Military Intelligence (India)

Approximately 3,700 military personnel assigned to intelligence duties. These personnel are trained at Military Intelligence Training School and Depot (MINTSD), Pune.[4]

Indian Intelligence agencies have been often embroiled in turf wars, with the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing locked in constant power struggle. The M.I. too has lost turf to two new intelligence agencies, the National Technical Research Organisation and the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), created in the aftermath of the Kargil Conflict to address the intelligence failures that led to massive cross border infiltration. The D.I.A. took away some of its signal monitoring capabilities and foreign military attaches who used to report to the M.I.[2] The operational geographical mandate of the organization is set to 50 km from the border.

The agency was set up in 1941 as part of the erstwhile British Indian Army to generate field intelligence for the army, in WW2. After Independence, M.I. was initially tasked with generating only tactical or field intelligence in all countries bordering India.

In 1978, the directorate was involved in the Samba spy scandal, wherein it was later found that the directorate had falsely implicated three Indian Army officers as Pakistani spies.[5][6]

In early 1957, 2 M.I. officers had infiltrated into Chinese territory and carried out a Reconnaissance operation. It was due to this operation, that indian government got first-hand evidence that China had illegally built a road in Aksai Chin. The personnel had joined a group of yak grazers in disguise and gathered the first-hand evidence. [7]

In late 1990s, M.I. operatives moved into Tajikistan and later into Afghanistan, in support of the Ahmad Shah Massoud–led Northern Alliance that overthrew the Taliban in 2001 with the aid of the US-led coalition forces in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and the subsequent War in Afghanistan. [2]

M.I. was also active in Myanmar, which nurtured insurgent groups. In 1998, a M.I. operative impersonated a Khalistani terrorist and infiltrated a gun-running Myanmar insurgent group. He led them into a death trap in the Andaman.[8] Operation Leech, as the operation was called, marked the start of the outreach of the Indian Army to the Burmese junta in the 1990s. It also aimed to offset the expanding footprint of China on the eastern border of India.[2][8]

M.I. has carried out operations in Bangladesh too because of safe sanctuaries provided to insurgent groups like the United Liberation Front of Assam (U.L.F.A.), the United National Liberation Front of Manipur (U.N.L.F.) and the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation.[9] Within months of the Hasina government taking over in 2009, the entire leadership of the U.L.F.A. and the U.N.L.F. was handed over to Indian authorities.[2]

In January 2012, the M.I. warned Sheikh Hasina, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, about a coup brewing in the Bangladeshi Army which was ultimately foiled.[2]

Since 2005, M.I. is also involved in hundreds of cross-border counter terrorism strikes across LOC, into Pakistan. Most notable being 2016 Surgical strike.[10]

• Defence Intelligence Agency
• Directorate of Air Intelligence
• Directorate of Naval Intelligence
• Technical Support Division