Domestic equity benchmarks erased gains after heavyweights HDFC, HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Infosys came under selling pressure.
The SP BSE Sensex fell as much as 636 points from intraday high levels and Nifty 50 index plunged 189 points from the day's highest point.
The sudden selling pressure in the markets followed escalationof geo-political tensions afterPakistan today claimed "strikes across Line of Control from within Pakistani airspace", a day after Indian fighter jets destroyed a vast terror camp within Pakistan in a pre-dawn strike.As of 12:09 pm, Sensex traded 132 points lower at 35,841 and the NSE Nifty 50 Index fell 0.58 per cent or 63 points to 10,772."More correction is seen on the cards if 10,720 breaks on the downside then 10,500 on Nifty can be breached by Friday," AK Prabhakar, head of research at IDBI Capital, told TheIndianSubcontinent.
Geo-political tensions are escalating and investors will try to protect their capital, he added.Eight of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange (NSE) were trading lower led by the Nifty Information Technology Index, which was down around 1 per cent.
The media, banking and financial services indexesalso traded around 0.5 per cent lower each.From the Nifty 50 basket of shares, 30 scrips traded lower while 20 advanced.Wipro was the top loser from the Nifty 50 basket, down 3.22 per cent at Rs 375.15.
Tata Motors, Bharti Infratel, Vedanta, Bharat Petroleum and Indian Oil were among the top losers.On the flipside, UltraTech Cement, Sun Pharma, Bajaj Auto, UPL and NTPC were among the gainers.The broader markets were trading on a mixed note as the SP BSE MidCap Index rose 0.3 per cent while the SP BSE SmallCap Index rose 0.1 per cent.The overall market breadth turned bearish as 1,238 shares declinedwhile 1,036 were advancedon the the BSE.