His wife, Sheikh Hasina, was with him in West Germany, where he was receiving advanced training in nuclear reactor physics, when her father, Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was assassinated in 1975 along with most of his family. Wazed was engaged in research work at the New Delhi-based laboratory of the Atomic Energy Commission of India during 1975–1982, the period of exile of the remainder of the Mujib family after the bloody 15 August 1975 Bangladesh coup d'état. After his return to Bangladesh, he joined the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission, and retired as its chairman in 1999.