A 25-year-old actress from the Marathi film industry and her newborn baby died within hours in Maharashtra's Hingoli district on Sunday apparently due to unavailability of ambulance, a police official said on Monday. Relatives of the deceased actress, Pooja Zunjar, claimed she would have been alive had they managed to get an ambulance in time.

The incident, which occurred on the eve of October 21 assembly elections on Sunday, paints a grim picture of the state of the health infrastructure in rural Maharashtra notwithstanding claims of political parties to provide quality healthcare to people. The shocking incident occurred around 6.30 am on October 20 in Hingoli district, around 590 kms from Mumbai, in the Marathwada region.