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Internal Security Department

The Sepoy Mutiny of 1915

The 1915 sepoy mutiny in Singapore, driven by anti-colonial sentiment and seditious influence, led to civilian deaths and spurred the formation of the Criminal Intelligence Department in 1918.

In February 1915, a mutiny by sepoys (Indian soldiers) of the Fifth Light Infantry in Singapore caught the British colonial authorities by surprise. Influenced by seditious propaganda and radical anti-colonial sentiment, the mutineers targeted English civilians and troops as they fanned out across Singapore. By the time the mutiny was quelled, at least 40 European civilians and soldiers had been killed. A Court of Inquiry attributed the mutiny to several factors including dissension within the regiment as well as the spread of seditious ideas and the influence of the German prisoners-of-war whom the sepoys were guarding. These developments highlighted the pressing need for a specialised intelligence organisation in colonial Singapore, spurring the creation of the Criminal Intelligence Department within the Straits Settlements Police in 1918 to deal with sedition, espionage and subversion.