VERDICT: MISLEADING — Two Bangladeshi nationals were executed in Saudi Arabia, but they were not newlyweds, the photo in the viral posts shows an unrelated Egyptian couple, and the “kiss” detail was invented.
The claim
Since October 19, posts across X, Instagram and Facebook have carried a furious accusation: Saudi Arabia has “EXECUTED” a newlywed Bangladeshi couple — Nazrul Islam Abdul Basir and Siri Akhtar — because the husband “merely kissed his pregnant wife’s belly” inside a mosque in Mecca. The posts include a photo of a young couple posing at the Masjid al-Haram.
One widely shared version, posted on October 20 by Supreme Court lawyer Shashank Shekhar Jha, wrote in all caps: “Saudi Arabia has EXECUTED Newlywed Bangladeshi Couple Nazrul Islam Abdul Basir and Siri Akhtar. Nazrul merely ‘Kissed his Pregnant Wife’s Belly’ inside Mecca Mosque.” Other versions swap in a forehead kiss or describe a honeymoon.
The facts
Here is what the evidence actually supports — and what it doesn’t.
1. The executions really happened. On October 14, 2026, Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry announced that two Bangladeshi nationals, Nadhir Al Islam Abdul Basir and Siti Akhtar, had been put to death in the Mecca region. They had been convicted of an “indecent act” inside a mosque and sentenced under ta’zir, a discretionary Islamic-law punishment. The sentence was upheld on review and a royal order authorized the executions. Read the official Saudi Press Agency statement. That is the part of the story the viral posts get right — and almost the only part.
2. The official statement says nothing about a kiss. The ministry’s announcement contains no mention of a kiss of any kind. No mention of a pregnancy. No mention of a honeymoon. It says only that the two committed an “indecent act” inside a mosque, without identifying the mosque, the date, or the method of execution. Every post describing the precise act is filling a blank the authorities left empty — with fiction.
3. They were not newlyweds. Nazrul’s own father, Abdul Bachir, demolished the story’s emotional core. Speaking to Bangladeshi outlet Jago News 24 on October 19, he said: “When did he get married? That woman was not Nazrul’s wife. We do not even know her. I heard they worked at the same place.” He added that claims about the bodies being returned to Bangladesh were also untrue. Nazrul had travelled to Saudi Arabia about four years earlier for work as a cleaner around Masjid al-Haram — and had spent more than three years in prison before his execution. There was no honeymoon. Read the Jago News 24 interview with Nazrul’s father.
4. The photo shows a different couple entirely. The image attached to the viral posts has nothing to do with the two Bangladeshis. A reverse image search traces it to December 2024 posts by Egyptian influencer Gehad Elbana and her husband Ramzy Mahmoud, announcing a pregnancy. Two living people, in another country, celebrating an expected child — repurposed as the faces of an execution story.
5. Even the names are garbled. The Saudi statement identifies the pair as “Nadhir Al Islam Abdul Basir” and “Siti Akhtar.” The viral posts render them as “Nazrul Islam Abdul Basir” and “Siri Akhtar” — small corruptions that show the text was copied from other posts, not from any official source.
Verdict
MISLEADING. The October 14 executions are confirmed by Saudi Arabia’s own official statement. But the viral story built on top of them — newlyweds, a kiss on a pregnant belly, a honeymoon in Mecca, the photograph — collapses on every checkable detail: the man’s father says the woman was not his son’s wife and the family never knew her; the official record describes only an unspecified “indecent act”; and the photograph shows an unrelated Egyptian couple. A real tragedy was dressed in invented particulars to make it more shareable.
Why it matters
This is outrage engineered for maximum velocity: newlyweds, a kiss, a pregnancy, the holiest site in Islam — every element chosen to short-circuit skepticism and trigger fury. But the fabrication has victims beyond the misled reader. The Egyptian couple whose pregnancy photos were stolen are now the unwilling faces of an execution story. And the misinformation buries the story that actually deserves attention: two young migrant workers — Nazrul, 22, had been in a Saudi prison for over three years — were put to death without Bangladesh’s consulate being notified in advance; their families learned of it from the news, and Dhaka has formally demanded the case records. We have seen the same machinery before: a fabricated death announcement for Shahid Afridi and a false claim that an army officer died at a Rawalpindi cricket match. The defense never changes: when a post makes you furious, check the primary source before you share it.
