The families of two Bangladeshis executed in Saudi Arabia knew that their loved ones had been arrested but were unaware of the charges against them or that they had been sentenced to death, relatives said.
One of them, identified by Saudi authorities as Shiti Akhtar, was actually Sweety Akhter, from Nagar Chawali Charpara village in Mirzapur upazila of Tangail. The expatriates’ welfare minister had earlier said she was from Cumilla.
Sweety’s family said she had remained in contact with them from prison but never told them that she faced the death penalty. Her parents are still struggling to accept reports of her execution, with her father hoping she would return home.
The other executed Bangladeshi was Nazrul Islam, from Birampur village in Sultanpur union of Brahmanbaria Sadar upazila. His parents said they had lost contact with him about seven months after he went to Saudi Arabia on 10 November 2022. He later called them from prison and spoke to them every Sunday but never mentioned his death sentence.
Nazrul’s parents also said they did not know how he had met Sweety or what relationship, if any, existed between them.
Sweety’s family said she had travelled to Saudi Arabia in 2023 after her divorce, hoping to work as a cleaner. They paid Tk1.5 lakh to a local intermediary, identified as Natu Mia, to arrange her employment.
She told her parents that she was working for a company called Al Majal Al Arabi Group in Makkah. Contact with her was lost about six months after she arrived in Saudi Arabia. The family learnt of her arrest nearly a year later, when Sweety called them herself from detention.
Her father, Fazal Mia, said she had told him she was arrested in connection with a brawl. However, a Bangladeshi friend of Sweety living abroad told the family that the arrest was linked to a relationship with a Bangladeshi man.
Sweety last contacted her family on 13 October, the day before the reported execution. Fazal said she had told them she would return home within two and a half months.
The family’s anxiety grew after news reports and photographs circulating on social media indicated that she had been beheaded. The news eventually reached Fazal through people in the village.
Mahera Union Parishad Chairman Bibhash Sarkar Nupur said Sweety’s brother-in-law, Abdul Barek, who was serving on Durga Puja duty as an Ansar member, was shown a photograph published in the media and identified the woman as his sister-in-law.
Mirzapur Police Station Officer-In-Charge Abdullah Al Mamun said they had yet to confirm Sweety’s execution. “We have sent police to her home, and verification of the information is under way,” he said.
Mirzapur Upazila Nirbahi Officer Zahirul Alam said he had received no official information, although he had heard reports through various sources.
Shariful Hasan, associate director of BRAC’s migration programme, blamed the government’s lack of a clear mechanism for informing authorities when Bangladeshi nationals are detained abroad.
“Ordinary people do not know whom to inform or what procedure to follow when someone is detained abroad. We have not established such a mechanism,” he told TIMES.
“Thousands of people are in prisons in different countries, and their families do not know. In many cases, they learn about it only after the person has died,” he said.
