Who is Shobna Gulati? Coronation Street’s Sunita Alahan and River City star on the BBC
Get the lowdown on former Corrie AND EastEnders star Shobna Gulati
SHOBNA Gulati made her name on Coronation Street - playing the role of Sunita Alahan - as well as a leading role in Victoria Wood's Dinnerladies.
The actress and writer has also made appearances on Celebrity MasterChef and Loose Women over the years. Here's her story...
Who is Shobna Gulati and what is her background?
Shobna Gulati is a British actress best known for appearing in both Coronation Street and EastEnders - and also appeared in the two soaps' crossover show East Street, as her Corrie character.
In EastEnders, she played Ameena Badawi from October to December 2000, before joining Coronation Street from 2001-6 and then 2009-13.
She was also known for playing Anita in Victoria Wood's comedy Dinnerladies, appearing in both series of the popular show.
The 51-year-old appeared in Loose Women as a regular panellist from 2013, before leaving the show in 2014.
Shobna was one of the contestants on the 2009 series of Celebrity MasterChef and also featured on the Netflix and ITV series Paranoid.
In late 2017 it was confirmed Shobna had joined the cast of River City - BBC Scotland's weekly popular drama.
Shobna plays the role of Farah Khurana, an old friend of AJ and Annie who she met at university.
Who did she play in Coronation Street?
Shobna played Sunita Alahan in Coronation Street, and as with all soap regulars had plenty of ups and downs over the course of her time in the show.
Sunita's storylines saw her escape an arranged marriage, survive an aneurysm and a brain tumour, survive a tram crash and eventually be murdered by her ex-lover Karl Munro.
She first appeared in 2001 when she took a job in Dev's shop to get out of an arranged marriage in India, despite her parents swearing to disown her if she did not go through with the match.
She ended up marrying Dev in 2006, but she divorced him off-screen soon after as she was written out.
When Sunita returned to Corrie in 2009 she was a big part of Dev's storyline again, rejecting one proposal and later agreeing to rekindle their relationship.
Her final exit was in 2013, when she was killed by another ex-lover, Karl Munro. Karl framed Sunita for starting the fire at the Rovers Return after she had caught him committing the crime, knocking her out and leaving her for dead before eventually pulling out her breathing tube in the hospital before she could recover and reveal the truth.
