NEW DELHI: Delhi Police detained between eight and ten Tibetan nationals from a tunnel near Pragati Maidan on Friday morning, September 11, 2026, according to police sources, just hours before Chinese President Xi Jinping was scheduled to arrive in the capital for the 18th BRICS Summit. The detainees had allegedly gathered in the area to protest against the Chinese delegation's visit to the national capital.
Police have not yet released further details on the exact circumstances of the detention, the identities of those held, or whether any of them will face formal charges. The incident is still being treated as a developing story, and it remains unclear at this stage whether the detainees will be released without charge, as has typically happened in similar cases in the past, or whether the matter will be taken further. Friday's action was not an isolated flashpoint, either. On the same day, members of the Tibetan community were seen gathering separately at Majnu ka Tila, Delhi's long-established Tibetan settlement, to protest against Xi Jinping's visit to India for the summit, according to visuals shared by the news agency ANI. Taken together, the two incidents suggest that opposition to the Chinese delegation's presence in Delhi this week was not confined to a single group or a single location, but was playing out at more than one point across the city on the same morning.
Delhi's Massive Security Build-Up for the Summit
The detentions near Pragati Maidan came against the backdrop of one of the largest security operations the capital has mounted in recent years. With multiple heads of state, including Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, converging on the city for the two-day summit, authorities have deployed roughly 15,000 police personnel and around 200 paramilitary companies across Delhi, alongside significant traffic restrictions in areas surrounding the summit venue and the routes used by visiting delegations.
Much of this build-up was planned well in advance. According to reports citing intelligence assessments, the Intelligence Bureau had specifically warned security agencies ahead of the summit about the possibility of protests connected to the visiting Chinese and Russian delegations, with Tibetan groups flagged as one of the more predictable sources of demonstration given the long history of friction between Tibetan exile communities and Chinese state visits to India. Concerns around potential Khalistan-linked threats were also being separately monitored during the same period, with agencies reportedly receiving intermittent emails and other inputs flagging possible risks in the lead-up to the event.
Beyond physical policing on the ground, authorities have also stepped up digital surveillance in the days surrounding the summit, monitoring social media platforms and other communication channels for early signs of protest calls, mobilisation efforts, or plans for disruptive acts such as graffiti. Security cover has additionally been tightened around the summit venue itself, the hotels accommodating visiting delegations, VVIP movement corridors used by foreign leaders, and major transportation hubs across the city, reflecting the scale of precaution considered necessary when this many world leaders are present in one place at the same time.
A Familiar Pattern Whenever a Chinese Leader Visits India
Friday's detentions are far from the first time Delhi has seen this kind of pre-emptive action around a Chinese leader's visit. The pattern stretches back well over a decade and has repeated itself with striking consistency each time a senior Chinese official has travelled to India. In 2012, when the country last hosted a BRICS summit and then-Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in Delhi, Indian authorities closed down Tibetan neighbourhoods and detained hundreds of Tibetans in the days before the summit specifically to prevent anti-China demonstrations, with most of those held released without charge within a matter of hours.
A similar sequence played out in 2014, during Xi Jinping's own state visit to India as president. Tibetan exiles were detained by police both outside the hotel where Xi was staying and near Hyderabad House, where he was holding formal talks with then Prime Minister Narendra Modi. These detentions were not limited to state visits alone, either they have become something of a recurring fixture on the calendar. Every March, Tibetan activists in Delhi mark the anniversary of the 1959 uprising against Chinese rule outside the Chinese Embassy, and police detentions have followed at nearly every one of these annual gatherings for years. As recently as July 2026, members of the Tibetan Youth Congress were detained during a "Free Tibet" protest held at the same embassy, underlining that this is not a one-off response tied specifically to this week's summit, but part of an established and fairly predictable rhythm in how Delhi Police handle Tibetan demonstrations whenever China features prominently in the capital's diplomatic calendar.
Why This Time Looks Slightly Different
What sets Friday's detentions apart from much of that earlier history is the location. Rather than taking place at the Chinese Embassy, the traditional site of most Tibetan protests in Delhi, this incident occurred in a tunnel close to the summit venue at Pragati Maidan itself. With both Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin present in the city simultaneously for a high-profile multilateral summit, security agencies appear to have taken a more pre-emptive approach this time, intercepting protesters before they could get near the actual proceedings rather than waiting for a demonstration to gather at a more predictable, traditional protest site.
With the BRICS Summit's formal sessions continuing through Sunday, and with Friday alone having produced protest activity at both Pragati Maidan and Majnu ka Tila, further incidents of this kind cannot be ruled out over the remaining two days of the gathering. For now, Delhi Police have not indicated whether Friday's detainees have been released, and the broader security posture across the capital is expected to remain at its current heightened level until the summit concludes and the visiting delegations depart.
