CD Web DeskMangaluru, Aug 16, 2020: Dr B. Ahmed Hajee Mohiudeen, a prominent educationist, entrepreneur and philanthropist, passed away at a private hospital in the city on Sunday due to age-related ailments. He was 87.
His mortal remains were briefly kept at Thumbay PU College for public viewing. The funeral was held later in the evening at the Thumbay Masjid burial ground.
Dr Ahmed Hajee was the Founder-Chairman of the B.A. Group, Thumbay, in Dakshina Kannada district.
Born in 1933 to B. Mohiudeen Hajee and Mariamma in a business family in Mangaluru, he was introduced early to trade and enterprise. His father was a well-known name in the timber business. Dr Ahmed Hajee graduated in Commerce in 1954 and began his career soon thereafter as a small-scale industrialist in the then nondescript village of Thumbay, on the outskirts of Mangaluru.
He founded the B.A. Group in 1957. Over the decades, the Group grew into a well-diversified conglomerate with more than five decades of standing in the wood industry. From its modest beginnings in the 1960s, the B.A. Group expanded into multiple sectors, including urban housing, education, real estate, healthcare, and export-import businesses.
The B.A. Industrial Training and Technical Centre is sponsored and managed by the Mohiudeen Educational Trust, of which Dr Ahmed Hajee was the Chairman. The Trust also runs several educational institutions, including Kannada- and English-medium schools, a pre-university college, a nursery school, a primary school and Darul Uloom Mohiudeen Arabic College. More than 1,500 students are enrolled in these institutions.
Dr Ahmed Hajee was the founder-president of several institutions and trusts in Mangaluru and surrounding areas. For several decades, he served as president of Badriya Educational Institutions, Mangaluru. He was also the president of Nav Bharat Night High School, an institution established prior to India’s independence. In addition, he was a trustee of the Islamic Academy of Education under the Yenepoya Group.
He was a member of the Adult Education Society, Government of Karnataka, and had earlier served as a syndicate member of Mangalore University.
Dr Ahmed Hajee is survived by his wife, Bee Fathima Ahmed Hajee, three sons — Thumbay Moideen (Founder-President, Thumbay Group, Ajman, UAE), B. Abdul Salam (Managing Director & CEO, B.A. Group), and B.M. Ashraf (Managing Director, Mohiudeen Wood Works LLC, Ajman, UAE) — and a daughter, Mariam Shabana Faizal.
