Chennai, Nov. 1: A 22-year-old woman working with Nokia lost her life on Sunday in an industrial belt seen as a gleaming symbol of new-age technology and the ubiquitous cellphone.

Police sources quoted witnesses as saying S. Ambica’s skull was crushed when the robotic arm of a “loader machine” came loose and fell on her while she was working under it at Nokia’s manufacturing facility in Sriperumbudur, about 50km from Chennai.

“We have registered a case of accidental death. We are inquiring into the exact sequence of events and if there was any negligence anywhere,” Kancheepuram SP Prem Anand Sinha said.

The facility, apart from being in the town known for Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, is located in a 20km industrial belt along the Chennai-Bangalore highway that houses MNCs such as Hyundai, Samsung, Motorola, Dell and Flextronics. Nokia set up shop there during the industrial thrust given by Dayanidhi Maran when he was infotech minister from 2004-07.

Company sources said Ambica, who was from Vellore district and had been working with Nokia for two years, had basically been involved in assembling, sorting and packing mobile phones. She was apparently working at the “manual loader” on Sunday evening when the accident happened.

“Her neck and head got jammed in the loader machine when she bent down to pick up a box that had fallen,” the company said in a press release.

A third version was given by M. Shanmugam, the general secretary of the Labour Progressive Front that heads the workers’ union at Nokia. He claimed Ambica’s co-workers had said she was operating a punching machine and chatting when her hand got caught in the machine and crushed.

“She panicked while trying to free herself and, in the process, lost her balance, slipped and fell into the slot and the machine crushed her head and neck,” Shanmugam told The Telegraph.

He claimed the accident had happened in the production area, not in the manual loading dock as put out by the company. “The mishap was because of inattention on part of the worker and there was little time for others to rescue her.”

Ambica was taken to a Sriperumbudur hospital where she was declared dead on arrival. She was the sole earning member of her family, with a salary of around Rs 8,000 a month. The factory declared a holiday today.

A Nokia spokesperson said: “Safety and security of our employees is of utmost concern to us. Any such incident will be investigated properly as per factory norms and guidelines.”

The handset manufacturer employs around 8,000 people at the facility, of which 4,000 are regular workers and 4,000 on contract. About 70 per cent employees are women because assembling and packing require nimble hands, company sources said.