Shah came back to Pakistan, after the 1971 Winter War where he joined his alma mater, Quaid-i-Azam University. His early research were mainly focused and emphasised on Fluid and Aerodynamics. In 1972, M. Shah was introduced by Asghar Qadir to Dr. Abdus Salam, where Professor Salam had delegated M. Shah to Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission where he had closely collaborated with Dr. Riazuddin and Dr. Asghar Qadir in the development of the nuclear device. At the end of 1975, Dr. A. Qadeer Khan had brought the drawings of the Zippe-type centrifuges, which according to Dr. Ghulam Dastagir Alam, were incomplete and the drawings of the centrifuge machine were incorrect. Anwar Ali then contacted Hafeez Qureshi to re-design and work out the solution of the Centrifuge machine. Hafeez Qureshi informed Munir Ahmad Khan (who later consulted with Dr. Abdus Salam) about the problem faced by the KRL scientists. Tasneem Mohammad Shah who specialised in Fluid dynamics from Oxford, was named by Dr. Abdus Salam for the gas-centrifuge project when Munir Ahmad Khan and Hafeez Qureshi consulted with him. In 1975, Anwar Ali and Dr. G.D. Alam had met with Tasneem Shah in Islamabad, and Shah, with the full backing of Abdus Salam, was accompanied by Dr. G. D. Alam to a secret project in Kahuta in 1975.