Indian shares extended their slide into a second session on Thursday amid liquidation by investors covering expiring futures contracts.
The 30-share Mumbai Stock Exchange sensitive index shed 1.25 percent to close at 5,802.75 points, taking its losses over the past two days to more than three percent.
The marker has been on a roller coaster ride since it struck a historic intra-day peak of 6,249.60 points in early January.
Losing issues were nearly twice the number of gainers, while volume dipped to 142 million shares amid weakening sentiment.
"The intermediate trend looks negative as there are no triggers left with the earnings season at its fag end," said Gopi Shenoy, chief dealer at IDBI Capital Markets.
He said the marker has broken through an important support of 5,830 points and the next strong support was at 5,300.
Sentiment surrounding technology issues took a hit after overnight losses on the Nasdaq.
Infosys Technologies Ltd, India's No 2 software exporter, shed 3.2 percent to 5,265.15 points while third-ranked Wipro Ltd fell 5.2 percent to 1,570.30 rupees.
Reliance Industries, the country's biggest petrochemicals maker, fell 1.4 percent to 569.95 rupees despite reporting better-than-expected past quarter earnings.