Gurlaine Kaur Garcha has joined the cast of 'EastEnders'.

Rukku Nahar and Priya Davdra as Habiba and Iqra Ahmed

Rukku Nahar and Priya Davdra as Habiba and Iqra Ahmed

The former UK Taekwondo champion will arrive in Walford later this month as Ash, the secret girlfriend of Iqra Ahmed (Priya Davdra).

Iqra is preparing to come out to her grandparents, Mariam (Indira Joshi) and Arshad (Madhav Sharma)., and wants to introduce them to her secret partner.

Gurlaine has previously had small roles in both 'Doctors and 'Holby City'.

Iqra admitted to her younger sister Habiba (Rukku Nahar) that she has been dating a woman in scenes earlier this week after getting into an argument with her sibling's lover Adam Bateman (Stephen Rahman-Hughes).

After Adam claimed Iqra had a secret boyfriend, Habiba confronted her sister but was shocked by the truth.

After Iqra told her family she was seeing someone, she fled outside and her sister followed her and said: "I came to say thank you. I mean, you could have just thrown a coughing fit or something. You didn't have to make all that up."

Iqra replied: "I didn't. I do have someone."

Stunned Habiba said: "So what Adam said is true? Well, that's great then. So, who is he?"

Iqra snapped: "Her. Who is she? It's a woman. Think dadi and dada will be alright with that?"

Priya made her first appearance on the soap alongside Rukku in February this year and admitted when she joined the cast in her first TV role that she "couldn't be more excited" to have joined the iconic show.

She said: "'EastEnders' was such a big part of my life growing up and I couldn't be more excited to be joining the show.

"Walking on to the set for the first time was such an amazing experience. I can't wait for viewers to meet the sisters and see how much drama they're going to cause."