Washington Star/Evening Star

The office of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., says the State Department has informed the senator that two Pakistani freighters now en route from New York to Karachi are carrying ammunition for the Pakistani armed forces.

Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, urged President Nixon in a letter to order the Coast Guard to intercept the freighter Padma, which left New York yesterday, to prevent the delivery of military equipment to Pakistan. He said that if this could not be accomplished, the United States should seek Canada's co-operation in halting the ship. The Padma's first port of call is Montreal.

A spokesman said Kennedy was advised by a ranking State Department official that the Pakistani freighter Sunderbans, due in Karachi tomorrow, carries munitions and other military equipment sold to Pakistan under the U.S. Foreign Military Sales program as well as through commercial suppliers.

Kennedy was told, the spokesman said, that the Padma carried munitions along with spare parts and other military-use items bought commercially by Pakistan and licensed for export by the State Department.

The State Department refused to comment on Kennedy's report. A spokesman said, "We do not know what there is aboard the ship" and announced that the State Department and the Bureau of Customs had launched a Joint investigation to determine the nature of the Padma's cargo.

A State Department spokesman, Charles W. Bray II, said that "it is possible" that equipment purchased under the military sales program and turned over to the government of Pakistan in the United States before March 25 was aboard the Padma.

Bray took the view that the shipments aboard the Sunderban's and the Padma did not constitute a speck violation of the administration's ban on deliveries of military equipment to Pakistan imposed after the eruption of the civil war in East Pakistan March 25.

He said that this was so because the interruption of the military sales program and the licensing of commercially purchased equipment on the State Department's munitions controls list had been made effective on that date and did not affect earlier transactions.

In New Delhi, Indian Foreign Minister Swaran Singh said today that if the United States is shipping munitions to Pakistan, "it is a clear departure from the assurances given me."

"I cannot comment on the correctness of the New York Times report," Singh said. SKI got the clear impression from the United States authorities that there has been no supply of military equipment to Pakistan, especially, after the trouble started in East Bengal (East Pakistan)."