The nervous selling also trickled down to the fundamentally strong infotech counters as punters liquidated a substantial chunk of their warehoused positions in anticipation of a further fall.

Reflecting the nervous mood of the market the 30-share Sensex breached the 3,300 points to close at 3,292.95 points registering a net loss of 61.03 points.

Info-tech stocks like European Software, International Computer Technology, ITI, PSI Data, Blue Star Information, CMC, Tata Telecom and Silverline were hammered down by over 8 per cent on the local bourses.

Bears tightened their grip at the index based info-tech counters with Infosys witnessing a price erosion of Rs 171 to close at Rs 4,502.25.Similarly, other IT representatives like Wipro, NIIT, Tata Unisys, Software Solution, Pentafour Software, Infotech Enterprises and Aptech lost over 4 per cent on account of the huge bouts of sales pressed by domestic players.Interestingly, the selling spree did not restrict to the IT sector but eventually trickled down to the auto industry stocks. Telco and Bajaj Auto registered net losses of 2.13 per cent and 3.04 per cent respectively.

However, with the cabinet's decision to reduce the subsidies and hike sugar prices, sugar industry stocks registered marginal gains. Similarly, the cabinet decision to restructure the equity of Nalco, the stock shot up by over 8 per cent to be locked at the day's high of Rs 24.35.

Although the institutional figures were not made available by the exchanges following Sebi diktat, the huge deals reported on the negotiated segment of the BSE were indicative of institutional participation in the market.FIIs like Jardine Fleming, James Capel and DSP Merill Lynch reported hugedeals on the BSE today.

While Jardine Fleming reported a huge cross deal of 15,900 demat shares at the counter of Aptech, DSP was the buyer of 15,000 shares at the counter of Cipla and James Capel reported a deal of 14,000 shares at the counter of Dr Reddy's Lab. CSFB Broking was reported to have sold 68,000 shares of Essar Shipping at Rs 8.30.

Quarterly results continued to influence the course of the market, with stocks reacting to the numbers released today. While ABB was hammered down to a low of Rs 485 from the intra-day's high of Rs 519.25, Carbon Everflow recovered by over 8 per cent to be locked at the day's high of Rs 43.20.