EastEnders fans have called out an “offensive” detail in a storyline involving Ravi Gulati. Viewers of the BBC soap have been keeping up on all the goings on after Nugget (Juhaim Rasul Choudhury) was hospitalised with a bleed on the brain following a mystery attack, which all turned out to have been done by his dad Ravi after he was spiked.

Ravi (Aaron Thiara) discovered that it was pregnant Nicola Mitchell and her son Harry who had spiked him, and earlier this week, he marched round to Nicola’s house with a baseball bat. As the action resumed in Walford on Wednesday, right where it had left off, Ravi continued smashing his way through her house as she quipped that she had “never liked” the pictures he destroyed anyway.

Ravi and Harry had a dramatic tussle on the floor as shards of glass flew everywhere, and Priya Nandra-Hart burst onto the scene to diffuse things. He later told her: “I could’ve done anything. I was this close to killing my kid. Nicola said it herself. I was fair game, but what has he got to do with this?” as she told him that Nicola was pregnant and wondered what would have happened had she not arrived.

Nicola, who spiked Ravi following his involvement in a drugs ring, later swore to her partner George Knight that she had “nothing to do” with the state Nugget had ended up in. She said: “We didn’t go after him! Yes, okay, it was the state that we put [Ravi] in but if he’d seen Nugget when he was totally out of it…George, he probably wouldn’t have even known it was him. George, it was wrong, I know that!”

Ravi then decided not to go to see Nugget in the hospital, reasoning that his son would likely “need the rest.” But in one final scene, Ravi removed his shirt and winced in pain as he rubbed various cuts, revealing that he has been self-harming. On the verge of tears, he sighed and grunted as he stared in the mirror.

But viewers of the BBC’s long-running soap weren’t necessarily convinced this way of “redemption” was the way to go for the character, especially when similar villains have not received the same kind of arc.

One wrote: “This is something that has also irritated me – Giving Ravi “The villain” a redemption/MH storyline feels offensive when they’ve barely given Kojo any aftermath. So we’re just led to believe that Kojo would get over something as traumatic as what’s he’s been through !”

Another said: “Ravi the tortured soul. Didn’t Nicola get Ravi involved in the selling of drugs initially (which he then turned on Harry)?” and another said: “They should’ve given Harry the Self Harm/MH storyline. Why redeem Ravi in this way when he’s still hiding secrets from Priya – she doesn’t know about the informing, the threats towards her kids from the higher ups etc”

A third wrote: “they need to stop pushing this redemption arc for the abysmal ravi, kill him off i say,” whilst a fourth wrote: “Obviously he won’t do it as he’s an informer to avoid prison for his role in the drugs ring , but instead of going Negan on Nicola and Harry , a good revenge for Ravi would be resuming the drugs ring out of the garage (Harry works) or Harry’s Barn (Nicola’s club).”

This all started when landlady Nicola seized the chance to offer mourning Patrick a complimentary beverage and decided to extend the same courtesy to Ravi. Nicola laced Ravi’s drink with a deadly amount of drugs and served both Ravi and Patrick their beverages, whilst Harry observed his enemy consuming the perilous mixture of narcotics and alcohol.

Before long, Ravi was stumbling out of the bar, crashing right into with George , the father of Niola’s baby, and making his way towards the Square when an entertained Harry intercepted him. Nish (Navin Chowdhry) returned and reunited with his son Ravi, who had managed to escape from The Arches.

In his hallucination, Nish tried to strangle Ravi, so he hit back and brutally attacked his dad. But of course, Nish wasn’t really there, and Ravi had instead unwittingly attacked his son Nugget .