Dr Yasmin Rashid: Biography, Age, Education, Political Career and Status in 2026

Who is Dr Yasmin Rashid?

Here is the main point. Dr Yasmin Rashid is not a career politician. She spent more than thirty years as a doctor and a teacher of doctors. She only entered politics at 60.

What she did next made her famous. She took on the hardest contest in the country. She stood for Parliament in the home seat of Nawaz Sharif, in the heart of Lahore, where his party had not lost for decades. She lost, tried again, lost again, and kept coming back.

Today she is 76 and in prison. Her supporters see an elderly doctor and cancer survivor being punished for her politics. The state says she was one of the leaders behind a violent attack on public and military buildings. The courts are still dealing with her appeals.

Dr Yasmin Rashid’s life has had three careers: the doctor, the challenger and the prisoner. Each one tells you something different about Pakistan.

Early life and family

Yasmin Rashid was born on 21 September 1950. That makes her 76 in 2026. The date comes from her official Punjab Assembly profile.

Where she was born is less clear. The Assembly’s profile says Lahore. Her public biography says Chakwal, a district in northern Punjab, and adds that she had her early schooling in a village there before moving to Lahore. Both agree that she grew up and studied mostly in Lahore.

She married in 1972. Her husband’s family was already in politics. Her father-in-law, Ghulam Nabi Malik, was a member of Punjab’s assembly in the 1950s and again in the 1970s, and was the province’s education minister in 1975. Her biography says it was on his advice that she later joined the PTI.

A sportswoman too

Here is a detail most people do not know. Her Assembly profile says she was once ranked number two in Pakistan in table tennis. She also won a university “Blue” in lawn tennis and captained the Punjab University basketball team.

Education: what did Dr Yasmin Rashid study?

Her qualifications are listed on the Punjab Assembly’s website.

Thirty years as a doctor and teacher

Before politics she had a full career in public hospitals and medical colleges. Her Assembly profile gives these posts.

• 1996 to 1999: Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Rawalpindi Medical College.
• 1999 to 2003: Professor at Fatima Jinnah Medical College, Lahore.
• 2003 to 2010: Head of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department, King Edward Medical University, Lahore. This is the oldest medical school in the country.
• After 2010: Head of department at a private medical college in Lahore, where she also ran units for fetal medicine and for the repair of childbirth injuries.

She has 51 research publications, according to the same profile. She led projects on safe motherhood, on preventing thalassaemia, a blood disorder passed on in families, and on girls’ education.

She was also a leader among doctors. She was an office-bearer of the Pakistan Medical Association for more than twenty years. Her biography says she was its president in Lahore from 1998 to 2000 and in Punjab from 2008 to 2010. In those roles she led doctors’ campaigns for better pay and working conditions.

So when she entered politics, she was already well known in one world: Lahore’s hospitals.

Why she joined politics

She retired from government service in 2010 and joined the PTI the same year. At that time the party held no seats in Parliament. Imran Khan was drawing educated, middle-class professionals who had never been in politics. A senior woman doctor with a clean reputation was exactly the kind of person he wanted.

In 2013 the party gave her its hardest ticket in Punjab.

Three contests against the Sharifs

The constituency was in central Lahore. It was called NA-120, then NA-125, and later NA-130 as boundaries changed. It had been the Sharif family’s home seat for a generation.

A few things are worth noticing.

The gap kept closing until 2024. From 39,000 votes behind in 2013 to under 15,000 in the 2017 by-election. That by-election was held after the Supreme Court removed Nawaz Sharif from office. His wife, Kulsoom Nawaz, stood in his place while she was being treated for cancer abroad.

In 2018 she doubled her vote and still lost.

In 2024 she fought from prison. She could not campaign. The official result gave Nawaz Sharif a wide win. She and her party rejected it. She said she had won the seat and that tens of thousands of votes had been added to his total. An election-monitoring group also raised questions about the count in that constituency. The Election Commission stood by its result, and Nawaz Sharif took the seat.

How she became a minister without winning a seat

If she lost in 2018, how did she become a minister?

The answer is the reserved seats for women. Each party gets a share of these seats in proportion to the general seats it wins. The PTI won Punjab in 2018 and put her on its list. She entered the Punjab Assembly on a reserved seat and took the oath on 15 August 2018.

On 27 August 2018 she joined the cabinet of Chief Minister Usman Buzdar. She was given both of Punjab’s health departments.

• Primary and Secondary Healthcare: basic health units, rural health centres and district hospitals.
• Specialized Healthcare and Medical Education: the big teaching hospitals and the medical colleges.

Together they make up one of the largest budgets in the province. Few ministers anywhere in Pakistan have run a department they knew so well from the inside.

Health minister in the Covid years

She served from August 2018 to April 2022, and again from July 2022 to January 2023 when her party returned to power in Punjab for a few months.

Her time in office covered the whole of the Covid-19 pandemic. Punjab is home to more than half of Pakistan’s people. As health minister she was in charge of testing, hospital beds, oxygen supply and later the vaccination drive in the province. She gave regular briefings and became one of the best-known faces of the response.

She did much of this while ill herself. Press reports say she was treated for cancer during those years and continued to work.

Her government also rolled out the health card in Punjab. The card gave families free treatment up to a fixed amount each year at listed public and private hospitals.

What critics said

Her record was not free of criticism.

• Doctors’ and nurses’ groups, including some from the association she once led, clashed with her over a law that changed how teaching hospitals are run.
• During the pandemic she angered many people in Lahore with a remark about the city’s residents not following safety rules. She later said she had not meant to insult them.
• Opposition parties said the health card paid private hospitals while public hospitals stayed short of staff and medicine.

9 May 2023 and her arrest

On 9 May 2023, Imran Khan was arrested in Islamabad. Protests broke out in many cities. In Lahore, a crowd entered and set fire to the official residence of the army’s corps commander, a building known as Jinnah House. Police vehicles and other property were also burnt.

Dr Yasmin Rashid was president of the PTI in central Punjab at the time and, according to press reports, was among the party leaders at the protests in Lahore that day. She was arrested on 12 May 2023. She has not been free since.

Many PTI leaders who were arrested in those weeks left the party soon after their release. She did not. She has now spent more than three years in custody.

The convictions

The cases against her were heard by anti-terrorism courts in Lahore, with hearings held inside the jail. Here is what the press has reported.

Three other senior PTI figures from Lahore have been convicted alongside her in most of these cases: former Governor Omar Sarfraz Cheema, former provincial minister Mian Mahmoodur Rashid and former Senator Ejaz Chaudhry.

What does she say?

She denies the charges. Her lawyers say the trials were rushed and did not follow proper procedure. She has filed appeals in the Lahore High Court against her convictions in at least three cases and has asked for the sentences to be suspended until the appeals are decided. We found no report of a ruling on those appeals.

The prosecution’s case is that she and the others planned and encouraged the attacks. The government says the trials were held by regular anti-terrorism courts under the ordinary law and that the evidence was tested.

Her health in prison

Her health has been a constant worry for her family and party.

• She was moved from jail to hospital more than once in 2024.
• In July 2025 she was taken to Services Hospital in Lahore with breathing difficulty and was given oxygen.
• Her lawyer has said that she is being treated for cancer, has a lung condition and was advised to have spinal surgery.
• On 30 June 2026, rumours about her condition spread on social media. The PTI’s spokesman said she was alive and in Kot Lakhpat Jail. Her lawyer said she had told him she was fine.

These accounts come from her party and her lawyer. We did not find a statement from the prison authorities.

Charge, conviction, appeal: where her cases stand

What supporters and critics say

Supporters see a woman of rare standing: a professor, a reformer and a fighter who never changed parties. They point out that she is in her seventies and unwell, that she stayed loyal when others walked away, and that she remains in jail while many who left the party went home.

Critics say that age and reputation do not place anyone above the law. In their view, the attack on Jinnah House was the most serious assault on a military building by a political crowd in the country’s history, and those who led the crowd must answer for it. Some also argue that her record as health minister was weaker than her fans admit.

Both views are held sincerely. The appeal courts will decide the legal question. The political argument will go on much longer.

Timeline: Dr Yasmin Rashid at a glance

Why her story matters

• It shows what professionals bring to politics, and what it costs them. She came from outside the usual political families and paid a heavy price.
• It shows how hard it is to beat a party in its home seat. Three serious attempts in central Lahore, and no win.
• It raises a hard question about justice and mercy. How should a state treat an elderly, sick prisoner convicted of a serious offence while her appeals are pending? People answer that differently depending on their politics.

To understand the reserved seat that made her a minister, read our explainer on the National Assembly of Pakistan, which covers how general and reserved seats work.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Provincial Assembly of the Punjab, member profile: Dr. Yasmin Rashid (2018 to 2023) — date of birth, degrees, medical career, sports record, family, seat and portfolio.
• Wikipedia, “Yasmin Rashid” — biography as last edited on 22 September 2026; used for vote counts and dates that still need checking against official records.
• The News, “Yasmin Rashid, other PTI leaders get 10-year jail in May 9 cases” — December 2025.
• The News, “Yasmin Rashid, others jailed for 10 years, Shah Mahmood acquitted in May 9 case” — June 2026.
• The News, “ATC sentences Yasmin Rashid, Cheema in May 9 cases” — 2025.
• Daily Times, “Yasmin Rashid appeals May 9 convictions in LHC”
• Dunya News, “Yasmin Rashid’s bail pleas in May 9 cases dismissed”
• Aaj English, “Dr Yasmin Rashid shifted to hospital after experiencing difficulty in breathing” — July 2025.
• The Express Tribune, “PTI refutes rumours about Yasmin Rashid’s health, says she is alive” — 30 June 2026.