Wazed Miah

Dhaka, May 9 (Reuters): The nuclear physicist husband of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina died today at a Dhaka hospital.

The 70-year-old had been suffering from heart and kidney disease.

“Dr M. A. Wazed Miah, former chairman of Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission, breathed his last at the Square Hospital at 1025 GMT,” Hasina’s press secretary Abul Kalam Azad told reporters.

Hasina was with her husband when he died. Miah received treatment in Singapore last month. He will be buried at his ancestral home in northern Rangpur tomorrow.

The leader of the Opposition, former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, expressed her condolences.

Miah and Hasina were married in 1968. They have two adult children.

Hasina and her younger sister, Rehana, were visiting Miah in Germany — where he was studying — in August 1975 when her father, then President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated in a military coup along with his wife and three sons. Miah accompanied Hasina into exile in India until 1981, before the family was allowed to return home. Hasina was elected Prime Minister for a second time in December 2008.