'Boarding schools, 5-star hotels on LeT hit list'

Two leading boarding schools located in prominent hill stations in a north Indian state and a few five star hotels in popular tourist spots are targets of Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Tayiba, a senior Home Ministry official said on Wednesday.

According to intelligence inputs, the terrorist group was planning to attack the two schools and the hotels, which are regularly frequented by foreign tourists, he said.

The information came in the wake of reports that David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the US for plotting a major terror attack in India at the behest of LeT, have revealed that they were also planning to attack the National Defence College in New Delhi.

The official said the intelligence agencies gathered information about the possibility of LeT attacks a few weeks ago and forwarded it to the concerned state governments for providing adequate security at the schools and the hotels.

Additional security personnel have also been deployed at the NDC located on the Tees-January Road in New Delhi, where the memorial of Mahatma Gandhi is located.

When asked if the government knew about the terrorists' plans and also steps taken to protect the NDC, Minister of State for Defence M M Pallam Raju had said, "I think there is a constant review of threat perceptions and targets... And we work on the safeguards adequately.

"You rest assured that adequate precaution is taken wherever there is a threat perception," he said.