Zartaj Gul: Biography, Age, Education, Political Career, Conviction and Status in 2026

Who is Zartaj Gul?

Let’s start with the main point. Zartaj Gul did something rare in Pakistani politics. She is a woman who won a general seat, by public vote, in one of the most conservative and clan-dominated parts of the country. And she did it twice.

She was also one of the best-known faces of Imran Khan’s government. She was young, outspoken and always on television.

Today her situation is very different. She has been convicted, disqualified from Parliament and has lost her seat. Her appeals are pending. Her story is now mostly told in courtrooms.

Zartaj Gul’s career has two halves. The first is about how an outsider beat a political dynasty. The second is about what happened to her party after 9 May 2023.

Early life and family

According to her public biography, Zartaj Gul was born on 17 October 1984. Her family comes from North Waziristan, a tribal district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on the Afghan border, and belongs to the Wazir tribe. That is why her full name is Zartaj Gul Wazir.

Her father, Ahmad Wazir, was an engineer with WAPDA, the national water and power authority. Government engineers are posted from place to place, and the family moved too. She had her early schooling in Bannu and Miramshah before the family settled in Lahore.

How old is Zartaj Gul?

People search for this a lot, so here is the arithmetic. Going by a birth date of 17 October 1984:

• She was 40 for most of 2025 and turned 41 on 17 October 2025.
• She is 41 for most of 2026 and turns 42 on 17 October 2026.

This date is from her public biography. We did not find it on an official page.

Education: what did Zartaj Gul study?

Her biography gives two institutions, both in Lahore.

• Queen Mary College, one of the city’s oldest colleges for women, for her undergraduate studies.
• The National College of Arts, known as NCA, where she studied textile design.

NCA is Pakistan’s best-known art school. A textile designer and a climate minister may sound like an odd pair. But ministers in Pakistan are rarely experts in their subject. They are politicians who lead a department staffed by civil servants and specialists.

From student volunteer to candidate

Her biography says she joined the PTI’s student wing, the Insaf Student Federation, as a volunteer in 2005. At that time the PTI was a small party with one seat in Parliament. Joining it was not a path to power.

In 2010 she married and moved to Dera Ghazi Khan, a district in south Punjab. That move shaped her whole career.

Dera Ghazi Khan is not easy ground for a newcomer. Its politics has long been run by a few landowning Baloch families: the Legharis, the Khosas and others. Seats pass from father to son. A young woman from a Pashtun family, with no local clan behind her, was about as far from the usual candidate as one could get.

Her election record

She has fought three general elections in Dera Ghazi Khan.

Each row tells part of the story.

2013 was a strong first try. She lost by about 10,000 votes. For a first-time candidate without a clan, nearly 39,000 votes was a signal.

2018 was the upset. She defeated Awais Leghari, a former federal minister and the son of a former President of Pakistan. It was one of the most talked-about results of that election.

2024 was a landslide. She won by more than 55,000 votes. Her rival asked the Lahore High Court for a recount. She took her seat.

Minister of State for Climate Change, 2018 to 2022

On 5 October 2018, Prime Minister Imran Khan made her Minister of State for Climate Change. She held the post until his government fell on 10 April 2022.

What does that ministry do?

Pakistan is among the countries hit hardest by floods, heatwaves and melting glaciers. The climate ministry:

1. Represents Pakistan at international climate talks.
2. Writes national policy on emissions, forests and wildlife.
3. Runs tree-planting and conservation programmes with the provinces.

During those years the government’s flagship green project was a large tree-planting drive. The ministry’s day-to-day leadership was shared between her and the Prime Minister’s adviser on climate change.

A minister of state is a junior minister. She was a member of the government and spoke for it in Parliament, but she was not a full member of the Cabinet.

Her public style

She was one of the government’s most active defenders in the media. She also spoke often about women’s rights and argued that Islam guarantees them.

Not everyone was impressed. When Imran Khan was criticised for remarks linking women’s clothing to sexual violence, she defended him and called him a symbol of women’s empowerment. Rights groups and opposition leaders said the remarks blamed victims. She and her party said they had been taken out of context.

The appointment controversy

In June 2019 a letter became public. It had been sent from her office to the Interior Ministry and referred to the appointment of her sister as a director at the National Counter Terrorism Authority.

She was accused of using her position to help a relative. Reports said the Prime Minister asked her to withdraw the letter. The authority later said the appointment had been made on merit. No formal action was taken against her.

After the government fell

In April 2022 the PTI’s members resigned from the National Assembly in protest at the removal of their government. Her resignation was accepted on 17 January 2023.

Then came 9 May 2023. Imran Khan was arrested in Islamabad. Protests broke out across the country, and military buildings were attacked. A broad crackdown followed. Thousands of PTI workers and many leaders were arrested and charged.

Zartaj Gul stayed with the party. She won her seat again in February 2024. In June 2024 she was named parliamentary leader in the National Assembly of the Sunni Ittehad Council, the small party that the PTI’s independent members had joined after the election.

In October 2024 police arrested her in a raid on her home. Photographs of her being taken away barefoot spread widely. She was released three days later.

The conviction of July 2025

On 31 July 2025, a special anti-terrorism court in Faisalabad gave its verdict in cases about the violence of 9 May 2023 in that city.

• She was sentenced to ten years in prison and fined.
• Other senior PTI figures were sentenced on the same day, including Omar Ayub Khan, then Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, and Shibli Faraz, then Leader of the Opposition in the Senate.
• She was not in court. The sentence was given in her absence.

What does she say?

She denies the charge. In her appeal, reported by Dawn and Geo News, she makes three points.

1. She was not named in the case when it was first registered.
2. She was not present at the scene of the violence.
3. Her name was added later through a supplementary charge sheet, and witnesses denied that she was present at the meeting in question.

Her party calls the verdicts political. It says they are meant to remove the opposition’s leaders from Parliament. The government says the courts are independent and that those who planned attacks on state buildings must face the law.

Disqualification and the lost seat

Five days later, on 5 August 2025, the Election Commission of Pakistan disqualified her and declared her seat vacant.

Why so fast? The Constitution has a rule about convictions. A person who has been sentenced to at least two years in prison for certain kinds of offences cannot be a member of Parliament. Once the sentence was announced, the Commission applied that rule.

Here is how each institution was involved.

The appeal that could not start

This part confuses many readers, so let’s go slowly.

She filed her appeals in the Lahore High Court on 9 August 2025. The court’s office raised an objection. It said a convicted person has to surrender first. Only then can the appeal be heard.

On 11 August 2025 the Chief Justice agreed with that objection. The appeals could not go forward until she appeared before the court.

Before that, the Peshawar High Court had given her protective bail until 11 August. Protective bail is short-term protection from arrest. It gives a person a few days to reach the right court safely.

So she was left with a hard choice. If she appears, she can be taken to prison while the appeal is heard. If she does not, the appeal does not move.

The by-election

With the seat vacant, a by-election was held in NA-185 on 23 November 2025. The PTI boycotted most of that round of by-elections, including this one.

• Mahmood Qadir Khan of the PML-N won with about 82,400 votes. He was the same man she had beaten in 2024.
• Dost Muhammad Khosa of the PPP came second with about 49,300.

A second conviction

There was more to come. In March 2026, according to press reports, an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi decided the case about the attack on the army’s General Headquarters on 9 May 2023.

The court sentenced 47 accused to ten years each. All 47 had been declared proclaimed offenders, which means they had not appeared. Press reports list Zartaj Gul among them, along with Omar Ayub Khan, Shibli Faraz and Murad Saeed.

Where is Zartaj Gul now?

This is the question we cannot fully answer.

No report read for this profile says whether she has surrendered, been arrested or had her appeals heard since August 2025. A court declared her a proclaimed offender in the Rawalpindi case, which suggests that she had not appeared there by early 2026.

So the honest summary, as of October 2026, is this.

• She is not a member of Parliament.
• She stands convicted by two trial courts in cases about 9 May 2023.
• Her appeals are filed but, as far as we could find, not decided.
• Her whereabouts are not publicly confirmed.

Please check the latest news before relying on this section. Her situation can change in a single court hearing.

Legal words in her story

Before and after: how her position changed

What supporters and critics say

Supporters admire her courage. A woman with no clan behind her took on the Legharis and won. They say she stayed loyal when many others left the party, and that she is paying for that loyalty.

Critics remember a combative minister who was quick to attack opponents. They point to the appointment controversy. Government supporters say the 9 May attacks were a grave crime and that leaders who encouraged them cannot hide behind politics.

Both views exist side by side. The courts will have the final say on the criminal cases. The voters of Dera Ghazi Khan, if she is ever able to stand again, will have the final say on the politics.

Timeline: Zartaj Gul at a glance

Why her story matters

• It shows that dynasties can be beaten. A candidate with energy and a popular party behind her can defeat old families.
• It shows how one day changed a party. The cases from 9 May 2023 removed many PTI leaders from Parliament.
• It shows how conviction and disqualification are linked. A trial court’s sentence can empty a seat within days, long before appeals are heard.

To understand the seat she won and lost, see our explainer on the National Assembly of Pakistan.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Wikipedia, “Zartaj Gul” — biography as last edited on 6 October 2026; used for personal details, dates and vote counts that still need checking against official records.
• The Nation, “Omar Ayub, Shibli Faraz, Zartaj Gul sentenced to 10 years in May 9 riots case” — 31 July 2025.
• Dawn, “PTI leader Zartaj Gul appeals LHC against ATC conviction in May 9 riots case” — August 2025.
• Geo News, “PTI leader Zartaj Gul moves LHC against conviction in May 9 case” — August 2025.
• Associated Press of Pakistan, “LHC refuses to hear Zartaj Gul’s appeals without appearance” — 11 August 2025.
• Dunya News, “Zartaj Gul granted protective bail until August 11” — August 2025.
• Pakistan Today, “PHC bars ECP from any further action against disqualified PTI MPs” — 7 August 2025.
• FAFEN, note on the Dera Ghazi Khan by-election — November 2025.
• Dawn, “Zartaj Gul arrested in raid at house” — October 2024.
• MM News, “Omar Ayub, Zartaj Gul among 47 sentenced to 10 years in May 9 GHQ attack case” — 2026.