The Special Group (SG) is the black ops unit of Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), the foreign intelligence agency of India.

[5][7] The Directorate General of Security,[5] which was a confidential organisation created with assistance from the CIA after the Sino-Indian War of 1962, was put under the control of R&AW in 1968.

In 1982, Project Sunray was initiated by the Directorate, under which an officer from the Para SF of the Indian Army was tasked to raise a unit comprising 250 personnel.

[7] This team, which had earlier rescued hostages from Uganda's Entebbe airport with some assistance from R&AW, was composed of commandos from the Sayeret Matkal.

[6][7][Note 2] The original mandate of the SG was similar to that of the British Special Air Service and included counterterrorism and hostage rescue.

[4] The Non-Aligned Movement summit and Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 1983 was conducted under the direct vigil of the SG to prevent any untoward event.

[8] Operation Sundown was the code name of a covert plan in which the Special Group was to abduct Sikh extremist leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale from Guru Nanak Niwas in the Golden Temple complex, Amritsar.

[9] In December 1983, an officer from the Counter-Revolutionary Warfare Wing of the British Special Air Service arrived in India to provide advice regarding the plan.

[13] Operation Blue Star was the code name of the Indian military action carried out between 1 and 8 June 1984 to remove militant religious leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his followers from the buildings of the Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple) complex in Amritsar, Punjab.

[15] A group of SG personnel clad in black uniforms, armed with AK-47 rifles and Night vision goggles, began the assault on 6 June 1984.

[16] During the 1999 Kargil war, the Indian government had planned a raid near the Kahuta nuclear facility in Pakistan and had asked the Special Group to prepare for it.

[2] When the Indian Airlines flight 814 was forced by hijackers to land in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1999 the SG was instructed to be ready for a potential rescue effort.