400 Boston-area students, including 200 from Harvard, have signed a petition urging the Turkish government to grant political asylum to two Russians charged with last week's hijacking of a Soviet airliner.

The petition was the brainchild of Marlene Hanna, a student at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. Working with two volunteers from the Harvard chapter of Young Americans for Freedom, Hanna collected the 400 signatures in two days of canvassing at B. U. and Harvard.

Armed with a picket bearing the heading "Help Soviet Jewry," Hanna said, "It is absurd to hijack a plane from America but from Russia it's sometimes the only way to get out." Hanna characterized herself as an "ultimate anarchist."

YAF has not yet officially backed the drive but, according to Don Feder, chairman of the eight-chapter YAF chapter conference, a formal decision on YAFparticipation in the effort is expected today. "We are trying to work something out although there is the question of the justification for killing the stewardess."

Boh Feder and Laszlo Pasztor '73, president of the Harvard YAF, expressed support for a massive petition campaign to save the two hijackers from execution in Russia.

After the first Russian hijacking in 12 years, Branziskas Korejevo and his 18-year-old son face almost certain execution in the Soviet Union if not granted asylum by the Turkish government.

Branziskas, in testimony before Turkish government authorities, said he hijacked the plane in order to "provide to my son an education in a free country." Branziskas killed a stewardess as he commandeered the plane to Turkey last Thursday.