SAVVY Emmerdale fans have worked out the identity of Manpreet Sharma’s daughter after she briefly mentioned her this week.
During a face off with her ex vicar Charles Anderson (Kevin Mathurin), Manpreet – played by Rebecca Sarker – spoke about the time she was meant to marry Charles.
But their nuptials fell through when Manpreet – whom Charles knew as Saira – revealed she was already married with a five-year-old daughter.
There had been whispers among Emmerdale fans for a longtime that Manpreet’s sister Meena Jutla (Paige Sandhu) was actually her daughter because of the age gap between the two women.
But the penny quickly dropped when viewers remembered Manpreet was introduced on Emmerdale with a daughter Aiesha Richards, played by Shila Iqbal.
Aiesha and Manpreet both debuted on the ITV soap in 2018, but Iqbal may have faded from viewers’ memories as she didn’t last long on the show.
She was sacked only nine month after getting the gig over offensive tweets she posted in 2013.
At the time, an Emmerdale spokesperson said: “As a consequence of historic social media posts, Shila Iqbal has left her role as Aiesha Richards on Emmerdale.
“The programme took the decision not to renew her contract as soon as these posts were brought to the company’s attention.”
Iqbal admitted her fault and released her own statement at the time.
“I am terribly sorry and take full responsibility for my use of such inappropriate language. I have paid the price and can no longer continue the job I loved the most at Emmerdale,” she said in the statement.
“Although I was young when I made the tweets, it was still completely wrong of me to do so and I sincerely apologise.
“The only consideration I would ask is that I have recently received hateful tweets telling me that as a Muslim my Emmerdale role means that I am ‘committing sinful acts, promoting sin and deliberately going against the Quran’.”
Last week’s Emmerdale saw Manpreet and Charles have a heated confrontation in the church after ‘Saira’ faked her own death to start a new life in the village.
She begged Charles to keep her secret to save her new life, but it’s heartbreaking for his family, because his son Ethan (Emile John) considered her to be a mother.
Charles actor Kevin Mathurin said: “He [Charles] doesn’t want to ruffle any feathers and he doesn’t want the village to know his business.
“Charles does think Ethan deserves to know – he knew her as well, as a young child.
“He feels he needs to let Ethan know – Ethan was traumatised by the whole ordeal; he was old enough to know that she was important to their lives and went missing.
“It took a lot for Charles to protect and raise him through that. Ethan is his priority.”
And Emile further teased that Ethan saw Manpreet as his mother.
