New Delhi, June 15 (RHC)-- In India, the COVID-19 pandemic is taking a heavy toll.  

Ashwani Jain succumbed to COVID-19 in an ambulance as his family pleaded with several hospitals to take him in.  He was the latest victim of the pandemic sweeping through the Indian capital and exposing a deadly shortage of hospital beds.

"They don't care whether we live or die," said his 20-year-old daughter Kashish, whose uncle, Abhishek, sat with Ashwani in the back of the vehicle on its desperate journey across New Delhi.

"It won't matter to them but I have lost my father, he was the world to me," she said, tears welling up as she showed a photo of him.

All of the hospitals the 45-year-old businessman's family tried refused to admit Ashwani, even though an app set up by the city government indicated that COVID-19 beds were free, Abhishek told the AFP news agency.

With surging infections highlighting the precarious state of the Indian healthcare system, the death of Jain and others like him have heightened anxiety in New Delhi over the growing threat.