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NEW DELHI, Feb 27 (AFP) - Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee Wednesday cancelled his planned trip to the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Australia following the train massacre of Hindu activists.

Officials said Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh would represent Vajpayee at the CHOGM meeting, which begins on Saturday.

"The details of Singh's visit are being worked out," a spokesman from Vajpayee's office here said.

The cancellation came hours after 57 Hindu activists were massacred in a Muslim-dominated district of the western state of Gujarat while they were returning from the mosque-temple town of Ayodhya.

Thousands of Hindus have been gathering in Ayodhya in defiance of court orders and plan to build a temple on the ruins of a 16th-century mosque razed by Hindu zealots in 1992.

Police said 35 people, mostly Muslims, were arrested in connecetion with the train massacre, which sparked fears of deadly sectarian reprisals in India.

Vajpayee appealed for calm immediately after the killings and stressed that national security would be maintained at all costs.

His decision to stay in India appeared to be so he could focus on the fallout from the massacre.

However a diplomat in New Delhi said Vajpayee's cancellation was a surprise because he had planned to use the CHOGM meeting to build international pressure against Pakistan over its alleged support of cross-border Islamic terrorism in disputed Kashmir.

Relations between India and Pakistan are extremeley tense, with 800,000 troops massed on their common border following the deadly December attack on the Indian parliamant.

India accuses Pakistan-based militants of carrying out the attack. 

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