Jammu: An arrested militant of Lashkar-e-Toiba has confessed to police that the militant outfit is planning a suicide attack on the ancestral house of Army Chief Gen N C Vij, prompting authorities to shift his family to cantonment.

Sajad alias Abu Haneef, who was arrested recently from Mendhar area of Poonch district, told his interrogators that the Army Chief's house was in the "hit-list' of the LeT, which had assigned him along with an associate, who was killed in an encounter later, to carry out a suicide attack on Vij's ancestral house in the old city, the sources said.

Since the police would not be in a position to counter any such suicide attack by the ultras in a densely- populated area of the city, senior police officers, in consultation with the Army, decided to shift the family of the Army Chief, that included his parents and brother's family, they said.

In view of the high threat perception to the family members of General Vij, the authorities preferred to keep them in the most protected zone in Army cantonment in Jammu, the sources said.

PTI