IB alerts flag graffiti, drones and route intrusion before the summit
Agencies are watching social media for protest calls. The operation is described as comparable in scale to the 2023 G20 summit.
Delhi Police and central agencies have stepped up surveillance across the capital after Intelligence Bureau alerts warned of possible attempts to disrupt VVIP movement, breach security arrangements and cause disturbances during the BRICS summit.
The specific threats flagged are graffiti, drone activity and attempts to intrude onto VVIP routes, according to top IB sources who spoke to ANI. The assessment is that disputes involving participating countries could be exploited to organise protests around the summit.
The three things being watched for
The list is narrower and more practical than a general security warning, and each item points at a different vulnerability.
Graffiti is the least dangerous and the most likely. A slogan on a wall along a motorcade route is a broadcast opportunity rather than a physical threat, and it is why surveillance has been extended along VVIP routes rather than confined to venues.
Drone activity is the technical concern, and it is the reason anti-drone systems form part of the security grid across central Delhi. It also connects to the Airports Authority's decision to bar non-scheduled flights from Delhi's airspace between 7am and 11pm across the three days.
Intrusion onto VVIP routes is the scenario that would actually stop a motorcade, and it is the hardest to prevent along corridors that run through a working city.
Where the assessment comes from
The threat picture is described as country- and issue-specific rather than general, which is a meaningful distinction: it means agencies are working from the identities of who is attending.
China-related Tibetan protests and issues concerning Russia are among the factors in the assessment, according to sources cited by ANI. Khalistan-related threats have also been flagged, with agencies receiving emails and other inputs on the issue from time to time.
That is the structural problem of hosting this particular bloc. A summit bringing Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Masoud Pezeshkian into one city concentrates several long-running political disputes into a single weekend and a few square kilometres.
Social media is part of the perimeter
Agencies are monitoring social media platforms and digital communication channels for protest calls, mobilisation, provocative content and indications of planned graffiti or other disruptive activity.
Physical surveillance has been intensified around summit venues, the hotels where delegates are staying, VVIP routes, vital installations and major transport hubs. Delhi Police and central security and intelligence agencies are maintaining real-time coordination and information sharing.
Monitoring calls to protest is where security work meets civil liberties, and the framing in these briefings does not distinguish between a demonstration and a disruption. Both appear in the same sentence as things surveillance is meant to catch.
The scale it sits inside
The intelligence alerts are one input into an operation that is already substantial.
More than 15,000 Delhi Police personnel have been mobilised, with around 200 companies of Central Armed Police Forces deployed for law-and-order and operational duties. More than 100 National Security Guard commandos are involved, alongside anti-drone systems and repeated mock drills.
Officials describe the arrangements, drawn up by the Delhi Police security unit in coordination with national and international agencies, as comparable in scale to those for the G20 summit in 2023.
The officer on the record
One official has put his name to the arrangements, which distinguishes this part of the account from the intelligence briefings.
Special Commissioner of Police (Security) Manish Agarwal told ANI that roughly 16 heads of state are expected, several of them requiring high-level protection, and that Delhi Police has coordinated with the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of External Affairs, the Intelligence Bureau and other agencies.
"Internally, the Delhi Police has mobilised over 15,000 personnel for these arrangements," Agarwal said. "The MHA has provided us with approximately 200 CAPF companies, which are being deployed for law and order duties and other operational tasks."
He also described what has been done to the routes themselves: "We have sanitised the designated routes; the Delhi Police and the Traffic Branch will monitor them to guard against sabotage and ensure smooth traffic flow."
Sanitising a route means physically clearing and then holding it — checking drains, street furniture and parked vehicles along a corridor, and keeping it under watch so nothing is reintroduced. It is the standard counter to exactly the route-intrusion scenario the IB assessment flags.
What to make of it
Two caveats are worth stating plainly.
The first is sourcing. This account rests on unnamed intelligence sources briefing a news agency. That is normal for security reporting before a summit and it is not the same as an official statement — no agency has published the assessment, and none has been asked to defend it.
The second is that pre-summit threat briefings serve a purpose beyond informing the public. Publicised surveillance is itself a deterrent, and an assessment that circulates before the event discourages the very activity it describes.
What can be said with confidence is that the measures are real and visible: anti-drone systems over central Delhi, restricted airspace, more than 35 roads under traffic control, and around 120 trains altered across the same three days. Whatever the IB has picked up, the response to it is now the largest security operation the capital has mounted since 2023.
