Sweety’s life had been marked by marital difficulties and financial hardship. She married while studying in Class 8, but her first marriage ended, forcing her to return to her parents’ home with her daughter. Under family pressure, she entered a second marriage, but her second husband also abandoned her. Faced with financial difficulties and family problems, she decided to move abroad to earn money and improve her daughter’s future. However, within months of arriving in Saudi Arabia, her life took an unexpected turn.

According to an India Today report, Sweety was arrested in Saudi Arabia on allegations of adultery. On October 14, Saudi Arabia announced the execution of two Bangladeshi nationals, Sweety Akhtar and Nazrul Islam Abdul Basir. Saudi authorities linked the action against them to convictions in cases involving immoral acts.

Sweety’s family had no prior knowledge that she had been sentenced to death. Her father said he last spoke to his daughter on October 13, just one day before her execution. The family learned of her death through other people and a video circulated on Facebook.

Sweety belonged to Nagar Chawli village in Mirzapur upazila of Tangail district in central Bangladesh. Her father was Fazal Mia, and her mother was Johora Begum. The youngest of five sisters, she came from a financially disadvantaged family, and her father worked as a daily-wage labourer.

According to Bangladeshi newspaper Prothom Alo, Sweety married while she was still studying in Class 8. After her first marriage broke down, she returned to her parents’ home with her daughter.

She later married for a second time under family pressure. Her father even borrowed money to send her second husband to Saudi Arabia, but after reaching the country, he stopped contacting Sweety.

Sweety’s cousin, Salma Akhtar, told Prothom Alo that repeated difficulties in her married life and her family’s financial circumstances had compelled her to look for employment abroad.

According to Salma, Sweety’s daughter is now nine years old and studies in Class 3 at a local primary school. However, The Daily Star reported a different age for the child, citing Sweety’s mother, who said the girl was four years old.

Sweety’s father, Fazal Mia, borrowed 150,000 taka to send his daughter to Saudi Arabia, according to The Daily Star. She arrived in the country in March 2023 through a registered recruitment agency.

BBC Bangla reported that Sweety’s passport had been issued in May 2022. Bangladesh’s Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training approved her overseas employment in February 2023.

After arriving in Saudi Arabia, Sweety began working as a cleaner at the Grand Mosque in Mecca. For the first five to six months, she regularly sent money to her family in Bangladesh. The remittances eventually stopped.

Her father told The Daily Star that Sweety had sent money home for the first five months. One day, she called him and said she had been sent to prison.

According to a confidential consular memorandum dated October 18, obtained by The Daily Star, Sweety was taken into custody on August 2, 2023, on allegations of adultery. Nazrul Islam Abdul Basir, a Bangladeshi national who worked with her, had been detained a day earlier under Saudi Arabia’s cybercrime law.

The memorandum stated that both worked for Al Majal Company. Following her arrest, Sweety was held in a women’s prison in Jeddah.

However, Sweety had given her family a different explanation for her arrest. According to her father, she told him that some of her female colleagues had allegedly purchased cars illegally and that she had also been arrested in connection with the matter. Her relatives suspected that she had been wrongly implicated in the case.

Despite being in prison, Sweety remained in contact with her family. Sometimes she called every week, while on other occasions, a month passed between conversations. According to BBC Bangla, her family knew she was in prison but did not have complete information about the charges against her. Sweety had told them that she would explain everything when she returned home.

According to Prothom Alo, Sweety’s father last spoke to her after the Maghrib prayer on October 13. During that conversation, she did not mention the legal proceedings against her or say anything about a death sentence.

The Daily Star quoted her father as saying that Sweety had hoped to be released from prison within two months. Her elder sister told BBC Bangla that she learned of the execution through a Facebook video sent by a friend.

The execution of Sweety Akhtar and Nazrul Islam Abdul Basir triggered anger in Bangladesh, particularly because the country’s diplomatic mission in Saudi Arabia said it had not been informed before the executions took place.

According to reports, Bangladesh sought copies of the judgments and information about the judicial proceedings in both cases. Saudi Arabia had not responded to these requests at the time of the reports.

On October 19, Bangladesh’s Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare publicly identified the two people who had been executed. Despite the announcement, Sweety’s family said they had not received direct official confirmation of her death from the authorities.

Sweety’s mother, Johora Begum, told Prothom Alo that her daughter had endured so much but had not told the family anything about what she was going through. She appealed for her daughter’s body to be brought back to Bangladesh so that she could see her one last time.

The family had borrowed money to send Sweety abroad in the hope that she would earn an income, return home and improve their financial circumstances. Instead, they are now seeking the return of her body, while questions remain over the lack of prior notification to Bangladesh’s diplomatic mission and the family’s limited knowledge of the proceedings that led to her execution.