LAHORE, Oct 18: Governor Khalid Maqbool said on Friday that all powers would be transferred to chief minister.

Talking to reporters at the shrine of Hazrat Data Gunj Bakhsh where he earlier inaugurated the Markaz Muarif-i-Aulia, an educational and research centre, and offered his Friday prayers, the governor said power would be transferred to chief minister and “I will afterwards seek pardon of my sins.”

The governor said under the new setup everybody would play his constitutional role. As had been clarified by the president, power would effectively be transferred to prime minister and chief ministers, he said.

Earlier, speaking at the Data Sahib Mosque, he asked the people to pray for the success of new political setup. He said the Musharraf government had genuinely tried to serve Islam. To prove his claim, he said, the government pounced down upon those who were out to disturb sectarian peace.

“I do not claim that the government has eliminated this scourge but it is true that its intensity has been reduced with the efforts of the government,” he said.

He said normally war was fought with external forces. But sometimes this had to be waged within the country against those who wanted to disturb peace by attacking mosques and other religious places. The government had tried to promote tolerance, affection and brotherhood among the people while dealing sternly with those disturbing peace.

The governor said another example of government’s service to Islam was that India which was amassing its military on Pakistani borders and hurling threats at it for the past quite some time, had now decided to unconditionally withdraw the army. It had also decided that Prime Minister Vajpayee would attend a SAARC meeting in Islamabad.

He said India which was proud of its might and the world support to it had taken the decisions after getting impressed by the spirit of jihad by the people of Pakistan and the spirit of martyrdom by its military, fully knowing that no-one could defeat them.

The governor said religious education and research were pre-requisites for successfully propagating Islam in the world. And knowing fully well this aspect, the government had made several contributions in this regard.

He said the government had introduced BA and MA degrees classes in three Islamic disciplines in the Islamia University, Bahawalpur. It completed the construction and expansion projects of Ucch Sharif and the shrines of Baba Farid and Bhulley Shah.

The governor said the government was establishing two model mosques in every city. These mosques would provide a combination of religious and modern education and recreational facilities to their students besides providing a place for dispute resolution, he said.

He said the Markaz Muarif-i-Aulia would initially introduce research in Islamic studies and extend its facilities to research scholars of other higher institutions like the Punjab University. It would offer BA classes in few weeks and then become a university in the next over one year.

Earlier, the Punjab auqaf secretary gave details of the institution established in the basement of the Data Darbar Complex.