According to a confidential memo from the Bangladesh Consulate General in Jeddah, obtained by The Daily Star, both Nazrul and Sweety were employed as cleaners by Saudi company Al Majal. A prisoner list received by the consulate on September 30 showed that Nazrul had been detained on August 1, 2023, under Saudi Arabia’s cybercrime law, while Sweety was detained the following day on allegations of adultery.

Both families have disputed the charges against Nazrul and Sweety. Nazrul’s relatives told Prothom Alo that he was the victim of a conspiracy allegedly hatched by a Pakistani co-worker. Sweety’s family, meanwhile, said she was arrested after some of her female co-workers allegedly bought a car illegally. Neither account has been independently verified.

It did and the nature of their relationship. India Today Digital’s earlier coverage of the case noted claims circulating on social media that the two were married and that their offence amounted, at most, to kissing each other on the forehead in Mecca. Both families have rejected these claims, saying the two did not know each other.

Since then, increasingly lurid accounts of the alleged incident have proliferated online. One post, originally shared by a Pakistan-based X account, is now being reproduced verbatim by accounts based in Bangladesh, Pakistan and several African countries. Among other allegations, the post accuses an Indian man of being responsible for Nazrul and Sweety’s deaths.

WHAT ARE THE POSTS SHARED BY PAKISTANIS CLAIMING?

The posts in question, which entered circulation on Tuesday, October 20, claim that Nazrul and Sweety, who worked as cleaners at Mecca’s Masjid al-Haram, developed a romantic relationship and engaged in adultery in a secluded room between gates 85 and 87 of the mosque. The posts allege that Nazrul asked an Indian friend to stand guard while he and Sweety were together, and that the friend recorded the encounter.

According to the posts, the Indian man later circulated the video after failing to pursue a relationship with Sweety himself. The posts claim that Saudi authorities arrested all three, sentencing the Indian man to 20 years in prison while eventually handing Nazrul and Sweety death sentences for violating the sanctity of the Grand Mosque.

The posts also insist that claims that the couple had merely kissed during Umrah are “completely false and fabricated.” It further asserts that the Saudi Supreme Court deemed capital punishment an appropriate “exemplary punishment” for their alleged actions.

These claims remain unverified. Riyadh’s limited public disclosures have left significant gaps in the account of the case, creating room for such speculation. But the detailed narrative in these posts goes well beyond what has been established publicly. No available official record substantiates the allegations against the Indian man, including the claim that he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Nor has the detailed account of the alleged incident been independently corroborated.

In any case, endless speculation and the trading of accusations do little to clarify what happened. Whatever Nazrul and Sweety did or did not do, they were executed for an alleged non-violent offence. Capital punishment remains widely used in Saudi Arabia, which executed more than 300 people in 2025, many for drug-related offences. But that does not make the circumstances of these executions any less deserving of scrutiny.

Why did Riyadh not inform Dhaka before carrying out the executions, and why has it yet to provide the information Bangladesh requested? And why did Dhaka, which reportedly knew of Nazrul and Sweety’s year-long incarceration, fail to obtain further details about their cases or intervene diplomatically before it was too late? These are the questions that demand answers, not the unverified allegations proliferating on social media.