2001–2006 Sunita calls her boss
Dev Alahan (
Jimmi Harkishin), asking for help as she does not want to marry the man that her parents have arranged for her. She comes to Weatherfield on 23 March 2001 and tells Dev that she does not want to get married and Dev lets her stay in the corner shop flat. Her parents, Mena (
Leena Dhingra) and Suresh (Kaleem Janjua) dismiss her fears as pre-wedding nerves and warn her if she doesn't marry Deepak, they will disown her. Sunita refuses to change her mind, starting work in the shop and residency in the flat above. Sunita later leaves the shop and gets a job working at
The Rovers Return Inn public house as a barmaid. She begins dating
Ciaran McCarthy (
Keith Duffy), causing problems between her and her friend,
Shelley Unwin (
Sally Lindsay), as he tried to wreck her relationship with his friend,
Peter Barlow (
Chris Gascoyne) but Ciaran is arrested for being absent without leave as he is still serving in the Navy. He is away for a while and Sunita starts developing feelings for Dev but Ciaran returns and they reconcile. Ciaran proposes and she accepts but he changes his mind about getting married and can't tell her so
Tracy Barlow (
Kate Ford) does it for him. Sunita then confronts him before ending their relationship. She briefly dates
Danny Baldwin (
Bradley Walsh) but ends it after discovering he is married. Sunita later collapses and is diagnosed with an
aneurysm and a
brain tumour. Dev looks after Sunita, insisting that she get medical attention and going with her to her appointments. She is told that she will need an operation to repair the aneurysm but Dev's partner,
Maya Sharma (
Sasha Behar), who is friends with Danny's wife,
Frankie Baldwin (
Debra Stephenson), becomes suspicious. She sneaks into Sunita's flat and finds a pregnancy test. She assuming that it's positive until Dev tells her what is really wrong but Sunita's condition makes Dev realise that he is in love with her. He ends the relationship with Maya and tells Sunita after her operation. They decide to get married and they begin planning the wedding but Maya steals Sunita's birth certificate and as Sunita, marries 7 illegal immigrants and alerts the authorities. Sunita is arrested for
bigamy on her wedding day but Dev clears Sunita's name, implicating Maya in her place. Sunita is released and Maya is arrested but released on bail. Angry that her scheme failed, Maya sets fire to Dev's shops around Manchester before taking Sunita hostage and tying her up and gagging her then capturing Dev. She sets fire to the corner shop. Sunita and Dev are rescued by Ciaran and
Charlie Stubbs (
Bill Ward). When Maya realises they have escaped, she tries to run them over but crashes and a truck crashes into her. She is taken to hospital in critical condition under police guard and later imprisoned. In 2005, Sunita is overjoyed when she discovers she is expecting twins. Sunita gives birth to twins
Aadi (Adam Hussain) and
Asha (Tanisha Gorey), with Dev at her side. However, she later learns that Dev has children by several different women who he has given homes and jobs. She is devastated and leaves Dev after deciding she can no longer trust him. Off-screen Sunita divorces Dev, but they keep in regular contact.
2009–2013 When Dev sees a fellow member of his golfing club,
Matt Davis (
Christopher Colquhoun), with his children in December 2009, Matt tells him that he and Sunita are engaged. Infuriated, Dev visits Sunita, who apologises for not telling him sooner and reassures him that Matt does not want to take over as father figure. Dev is not convinced and confronts Matt, accusing him of doing so and implying that Matt might be a paedophile. Sunita then angrily throws Dev out, threatening to refuse him access to the children if he continues to cause trouble. In January 2010, Dev has a party for the twins for their fourth birthday at his flat in Victoria Court and Sunita is pleased by how natural with them but Matt is worried that Sunita still has feelings for Dev. Matt and Sunita's relationship ends as Dev and Sunita become closer, after pretending to still be married to impress Sunita's aunts,
Grishma (
Indira Joshi) and
Upma (
Jamila Massey), and reconcile. Sunita starts working with Dev in the Corner Shop again and in May 2010, Sunita convinces Dev to sell the flat and buy No. 7 from
Maria Connor (
Samia Smith). Dev agrees and Maria accepts their offer. In August, Sunita is horrified to find Aadi unconscious on the sofa and calls an ambulance. At the hospital, they learn that he has a head injury, that caused bleeding on the brain. Sunita and Dev believe
Claire Peacock (
Julia Haworth) is responsible as she is their childminder, causing an argument with the Peacocks, but are shocked to learn that
Simon Barlow (
Alex Bain) is responsible. Aadi was injured when Simon accidentally pushed him off the sofa. Sunita feels guilty and tries to apologise to Claire but blames Claire's mental health history — as she suffered
post-natal depression following the birth of her son,
Freddie (Niall and Luke Beresford) - angering Claire further, and she and her husband
Ashley (
Steven Arnold) refuse to accept Sunita's apology. In December 2010, a gas explosion at the Joinery wine bar causes a tram to derail and crash into the Corner Shop. Sunita is buried under the rubble, but later makes a full recovery. She is shocked to learn that Dev has used their savings to pay for the shop refit as it had not been insured and they face financial ruin as the shop had been looted on the night of the tram crash. Dev's other shops are also struggling, making
Steve McDonald (
Simon Gregson), feel guilty and he secretly returns the money his wife
Becky McDonald (
Katherine Kelly) stole. Dev wants to tell the police but Sunita refuses, insisting they pay
Owen Armstrong (
Ian Puleston-Davies) for the re-fit, rather than give the money to the police as evidence while they investigate. Dev and Sunita realise the money was stolen by someone they knew. Knowing that the Alahans are getting suspicious and wanting to protect Becky, Steve tells them that he stole the money. However, Becky refuses to let Steve take the blame and tells Dev and Sunita that she took the money and Sunita threatens to call the police and throws her out of the corner shop. When Sunita and Dev realise that Becky had stolen the money to give to her sister,
Kylie Platt (
Paula Lane), so she would be able to keep custody of her nephew,
Max Turner (Harry McDermott), Sunita decides not to call the police much to Dev's disappointment. Grishma and Upma, Sunita's aunts, return to visit her. They are shocked at how things had changed since their previous visit and are not impressed with Sunita's home and lifestyle and on learning that she and Dev are divorced and were pretending to be together before, so they start searching for a more suitable husband. They try to set her up with
Nick Tilsley (
Ben Price) and
Dr. Matt Carter (
Oliver Mellor). This prompts Dev to propose to Sunita in the Rovers, but she turns him down. Later that night, Sunita insists that she and Dev are fine as they are and that the proposal was just a way of proving a point to her aunts. When Dev's daughter,
Amber Kalirai (
Nikki Patel) moves in after dropping out of university, Sunita struggles to feel sympathy and the two women have a difficult relationship. Sunita soon starts to worry about their finances after Dev renews his membership at the Golf Club, despite the expense, and starts paying for Aadi to have golf lessons after he shows talent. Sunita is also angered by Amber starting a brief affair with
Sophie Webster (
Brooke Vincent), despite Sophie's relationship with
Sian Powers (
Sacha Parkinson). Sophie confides in Sunita who angrily warns Amber to leave Sophie alone but the damage is done and Sian jilts Sophie on their wedding day and leaves her. Sunita starts feeling that Dev takes her for granted whilst rewarding Amber for her bad behaviour. Wanting Dev to take her seriously, she gets her old job back at The Rovers when
Stella Price (
Michelle Collins), sympathises with her problems, particularly after she sees Dev's reaction to Sunita's news. After Amber throws a party at No. 7, Sunita is angry as the twins had been upstairs. She shouts at Amber and refuses to apologise when Dev asks her to. Amber leaves the same day. Dev blames Sunita for this and she goes on a night out with Stella. Sunita gets drunk, climbs onto the roof of a parked car and is arrested for being drunk and disorderly. Stella's partner
Karl Munro (
John Michie) collects her from the police station and is sympathetic to her plight. Sunita kisses him but the following day they agree not to take things further. She later learns that Karl has a gambling problem when he fakes a robbery at the Rovers to pay off his debts and Stella throws him out. Sunita puts Karl up while Dev and the twins are on holiday and keeps his winnings from a roulette game, hoping to help wean him off his addiction. Stella and Karl later reconcile but she refuses to allow him near any cash. Feeling undermined by Stella and touched by Sunita's kindness, Karl and Sunita embark on a clandestine affair. Karl feels guilty about cheating on Stella and ends the affair. Sunita is angered, feeling that Karl was using her and lures him into a honey-trap when he covers for Stella when she and her daughters,
Leanne Barlow (
Jane Danson) and
Eva Price (
Catherine Tyldesley) go out for the night together, trying to reconcile Eva and Leanne who have been arguing. Sunita stays to help Karl close up the pub and sees a text message from Stella to Karl on his phone, saying that she is on her way home. Sunita deletes the message and seduces him. Karl is horrified when Stella, Eva and Leanne find them together, semi-dressed, and throws them both out before telling Dev about the affair. Dev is willing to give Sunita another chance but she refuses, choosing to be with Karl and he moves into No. 7 while Dev moves into the flat above the shop. Sunita tries to make her relationship with Karl work but he resents Sunita having other priorities and he soon loses interest in her. After he gets drunk at the twins' seventh birthday party, Dev warns Sunita that Karl is making a fool of her and Stella tells Karl about the text Sunita deleted and he realises that Sunita did it to trap him. Karl angrily confronts Sunita and storms off, going on a drunken binge. Sunita changes the locks and tells Karl, when he returns, that their relationship is over, throwing his possessions out into the street. In the following weeks, Dev and Sunita begin to grow closer again. Dev agrees to give their relationship another go, much to Sunita's delight. However, when they announce this, Stella reminds Dev of the pain that Sunita caused him and urges him not to rekindle their relationship. Dev, realising that Sunita doesn't love him, tells her that they are finished. Sunita gets drunk and angrily confronts Stella in the Bistro. Later, whilst drinking in her back yard, Sunita sees Karl running down the ginnel and follows him into the cellar of The Rovers, where she finds him setting fire to
Jason Grimshaw's (
Ryan Thomas) building materials, trying to make it look like an accident in order to frame Jason. She attempts to confront him, and a struggle breaks out. Sunita is knocked unconscious and Karl leaves her as the fire takes hold. Sunita is rescued and rushed to hospital, where she is placed on a life support machine. Karl frames Sunita for the fire by placing the pub's spare set of keys with Sunita's belongings and pressing the keys against her fingers while she is unconscious in order for her fingerprints to be found in the investigation. When Dev learns that Sunita is starting to show signs of regaining consciousness, he tells Stella and Karl before visiting Sunita. Karl returns to the hospital and pulls out her oxygen tube. Sunita suffers a
cardiac arrest and dies. Sunita is cremated in a traditional Hindu funeral on 12 April 2013. In September 2013, Karl is arrested for The Rovers fire and Sunita's death, and Sunita's name is subsequently cleared from the investigation. ==References==