![Emmerdale fans left in tears as Rishi surprises his family beyond the grave](/upload/news/2023/08/02/81660.jpg)
Emmerdale fans were left in tears on Wednesday night as Rishi Sharma managed to surprise his family beyond the grave. Fans will recall it's been a heartbreaking time for Jai Sharma after his father, Rishi, died in heartbreaking and shocking scenes last week. As Jai and Laurel Thomas celebrated their wedding together with their family and friends, Rishi was not present, having fallen out with his son over lying about who Jai's real father really was.
In an emotional speech, Jai spoke of celebrating absent friends, as he thanked his dad Rishi for always supporting him and vowed to talk to him soon and tell him how much he meant to him. And, in true soap style, the camera then panned to see Rishi lying dead at the bottom of the stairs in a heartbreaking twist with his body later discovered by Jai.
On Wednesday, Jai continued to grieve for his father when Tom showed up with a USB stick, revealing it was off Rishi as he had asked him to digitalise all of their old family photos before his death. He added that Rishi had said, "It was important to protect precious moments".
Later, Jai sat down with his family to watch the photos, and he was left in tears. Soap watchers were left equally emotional as one person said: "Still not over Rishi #Emmerdale" with a string of heartbroken emojis. A different account put: "Aww pictures of rishi #Emmerdale," while another follower penned: "Omg the montage of rishi photos to the beach boys #emmerdale" with crying emojis.
It comes after Emmerdale's Bhasker Patel broke his silence on Friday after his much-loved character, Rishi, died in a shock twist after 12 years in the village. Appearing on Friday's episode of Lorraine with co-star Chris Bisson, who plays Jai, Rishi star Bhasker, 67, got teary over his emotional ITV soap exit and revealed that producers decided to kill his character off.
He said: "When the producer rang me and said: 'I need to talk to you and we're killing you off because we want a big story and it's going to be a big surprise.' Because my 12 years at ITV, they let me do a lot of other work, so I felt a part of ITV, a part of Rishi, but at the same time... I was working in London as well. So when the producer said 'we're going to kill you off', I was like: 'Okay, that part of my life with this guy is over and I'm going to move on'.''
To which guest host Christine Lampard said: "It's brutal though: 'we're going to kill you off' what a sentence to hear!" Later on the show, Christine, 44, decided to read out some messages from fans, which left Bhasker emotional as he wiped away tears.