Thaindian News

Lucknow, Jan 14 (IANS) Pakistan should use available “legal channels” to nab the perpetrators of the Mumbai terrorist attacks, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said here Wednesday. “There are legal channels available in Pakistan that should be used against the perpetrators,” Miliband said.

He was addressing the media after accompanying Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on a visit to his Lok Sabha constituency of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh to get a “feel of rural India”.

Miliband said Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari’s family too has sufferered due to terrorism - a reference to former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in December 2007.

He evaded queries on Gandhi’s potential to become prime minister. “In politics, one should focus on the present job and not the next job,” quipped Miliband.

Gandhi said: “I wanted to show him (Miliband) the village life and the spirit of poor people of the country.

“There are two parts of India (rural and urban). Our job as a politician is to ensure both parts move together.”

Asked to comment on the scam in Satyam Computer Services, he said: “It was unlawful…Guilty should must be punished.”

Earlier, Miliband visited Amethi with Gandhi to see how the poor benefit from development schemes.

Gandhi and a 15-member British delegation led by Miliband reached the Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow and drove down to Amethi, about 80 km away, on a two-day trip.

Uttar Pradesh Congress spokesperson Akhilesh Pratap Singh told IANS that Gandhi and Miliband went to half a dozen mud and brick villages. Reporters crowding Amethi saw them whiz past in a convoy but could not talk to them throughout the day.

Gandhi inspected self-help groups and healthcare schemes introduced by him some time ago, especially for women, Akhilesh Singh said.

Miliband and Gandhi interacted with some women in the self-help groups, according to a party member accompanying them.

At a recent meeting with the Congress general secretary, Miliband had expressed a desire to see developmental activities in rural India. Gandhi promptly invited him to his constituency.

Gandhi and Miliband also visited the Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital for secondary and tertiary care and the Indira Gandhi Eye Hospital in Amethi.

The Sanjay Gandhi hospital is named after the Congress general secretary’s uncle and the eye hospital after his grandmother.