The sharp decline was led by losses in heavyweight stocks such as HDFC Bank Ltd, ICICI Bank Ltd, Larsen & Toubro (L&T), Axis Bank Ltd, Infosys Ltd, Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M), State Bank of India (SBI), Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bajaj Finance, Bharti Airtel Ltd, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL), which dragged the benchmarks lower.