Nov. 28 :    Nov. 28:  The Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee today spoke to King Gyanendra and assured him that India was willing to extend all assistance to Nepal in its hour of crisis. Though the details have not been spelt out, much of this in real terms would mean military hardware and intelligence sharing between the two countries. The Himalayan kingdom, which began the crackdown This was the first conversation between Vajpayee and King Gyanendra since the massacre at the royal palace in Kathmandu in the middle of this year in which King Birendra and his entire family were wiped out. Yesterday, Vajpayee had spoken to his Nepalese counterpart Sher Bahadur Deuba. During this afternoon's conversation between the two, the Prime Minister expressed India's support for the emergency measures taken by Nepal to deal with the Maoist violence. 'India will stand by Nepal at this difficult juncture,' Vajpayee said. He also told King Gyanendra that he looked forward to visiting Kathmandu for the scheduled Saarc summit in January next year. King Gyanendra explained the circumstances in which emergency was imposed in the country on the recommendations of the Nepal Cabinet. Referring to the old relations between the two countries, the king thanked India for standing by Nepal in the past and hoped that New Delhi will continue to do so even in the future and during the present crisis. The Prime Minister told him that his government has already instructed the BSF (Border Security Force) to interact closely with their Nepalese counterpart and keep a strict vigil on the porous border between the two countries. Similar instructions have also been given to states which share a border with Nepal to ensure that Maoist supporters do not take advantage of the porous border and seek shelter in India. The Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Nirupama Rao said the Maoist activists were nothing better than terrorists. 'Such forces that take recourse to violence to achieve their objective pursue terrorist goals.' She, however, refused to give details of the kind of help that India was willing to give to Nepal. Yesterday, the Nepalese army chief Gen. Prajwalla S.J.B. Rana met his Indian counterpart Gen. S.Padmanabhan in New Delhi. Though details of the talks were not known, indications suggest he was requested South Block for military hardware. The hardware that Gen. Rana sought from India included ammunition for the infantry, weapons and artillery, engineering equipments and Maruti Gypsies to carry out operations in mountainous regions of Nepal. Army operations Today, soldiers hunted down Maoist rebels in remote mountain terrain and used helicopters to try to locate the Maoists. Officials said 66 rebels had been killed in army operations that began on Monday night. The army had also foiled plans for major rebel offensives in Okhaldhunga in the east and Jajarkot in the west, the defence ministry said in a statement. It gave no other details. It said troops had also recovered weapons, ammunition and explosives and some cash from Sallyan district, close to where Maoists had staged deadly attacks at the weekend. Nepal, which has some 45,000 soldiers, had previously used its ill-equipped police force to fight the rebels from the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). But its army, while better trained and renowned as fierce fighters, have been used of late for overseas peacekeeping missions and have little experience in guerrilla warfare in mountainous terrain suitable for deadly hit-and-run attacks. Activist detained Police today stopped a prominent human rights activist from leaving the country for examination of a heart ailment, and briefly arrested him without a warrant. Police arrested Padma Ratna Tuladhar at the Tribhuwan International Airport as he was about to board an Indian Airlines plane bound for New Delhi.