Sakharov Silent

NEW YORK--Students at Columbia University who are circulating a petition on several college campuses demanding recognition of human rights in the Soviet Union yesterday attempted unsuccessfully to call Soviet dissident Anderi D. Sakharov.

John P. Kapiloff, a Columbia sophomore who is organizing the student effort, yesterday said the Soviet operators told students Sakharov's line was busy. When the U.S. operator interrupted the call, the Soviet operators said the lines at both of Sakharov's residences have been disconnected.

Amnesty International officials who helped Kapiloff place the call told him no one has made contact with Sakharov for three months.

Kapiloff, who plans to bring the petition to Harvard within the next two weeks, said he expects to collect several thousand faculty and student signatures on the petition, which he will send to Soviet Communist Party leaders Leonid I. Brezhnev before the Belgrade convention on human rights this spring.

"Sakharov is screaming and we want to show some one is listening," Kapiloff said last night.