(Adds Indian PM's comments)

By Nita Bhalla

NEW DELHI, July 5 (Reuters) - Indian doctors seeking better job opportunities in the West fear they may be unfairly targeted after the British government said it would review how it recruited foreign doctors following last week's bomb plot.

Eight people, at least four of them foreign doctors, have been arrested over an attack on a Scottish airport and an attempt to explode two car bombs in London. Two of the doctors are Indian.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown ordered a review of recruitment to the country's state-run health service, where nearly 40 percent of registered doctors are foreign trained. Indians are the largest group among them.

Australian police were questioning Mohamed Haneef, 27, one of the Indians, detained while trying to leave Australia on Monday. Many Indian newspapers quoted Haneef's relatives in India as saying he was innocent.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said he had spoken to Brown on Wednesday and assured him of any help London needed in its investigations.

"I think labelling Indians as terrorists, Pakistanis as terrorists, I think these labels are best avoided," state-run Doordarshan News TV channel showed him telling journalists.

"Terrorists are terrorists. They have no particular religion, they have no particular community," Singh said.

"I do not think it helps us in understanding the situation or in dealing with it effectively if we remain confined to these stereotyped classifications."

Young Indian doctors, many of whom have friends working abroad or aspire to themselves, echoed those views.

SOLE BREADWINNER

"This is like tarnishing all Indian doctors as being terrorists," said Ashish Jain, 30, a paediatrician in New Delhi.

"Just because two Indian doctors may be involved in the attacks, they can't punish all of us. I believe it will affect our chances of going overseas."

"Many young doctors want to go to countries like Britain and the United States because working conditions there are better, the pay is better and research opportunities are better," said a junior resident doctor at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), who did not want to give her name.

Many young doctors at AIIMS, one of India's top medical colleges, said Britain was becoming an increasingly difficult place to get jobs due to tough immigration rules.

Haneef studied medicine at the private Ambedkar Medical College in the IT hub of Bangalore.

His family said he was innocent.

"It is not true. My brother will come out with more respect and honour," said Sumaiyaa, Haneef's younger sister.

Sumaiyaa said Haneef was heading to India to see his newborn daughter when he was arrested.

"He is like a father to me. It is such a shock," she said, adding he was a "fine person who prayed five times a day".

Haneef is the sole breadwinner in the family, having lost his father in a road accident 10 years ago, his family said.

The principal of Ambedkar Medical College, B.R. Ramesh, was quoted as saying in local newspapers: "The UK has been targeting Indian doctors. They want them out of the national health scheme." (Additional reporting by Y.P. Rajesh in New Delhi and Bangalore bureau)

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