India witnessed a major crash in the stock markets on Thursday amid huge selloff in the global markets. With drop of over 3% today, the benchmark Sensex and broad based Nifty lost crucial levels of 23,000 and 7,000 respectively.

European markets plunged in the range of 2% to 4%, while, US stock market futures went down nearly 2%. Oil prices drifted lower to trade near 12-year low.

At the close, the benchmark 30-share index, BSE Sensex declined 807.07 or 3.40% at 22,951.83 with 28 components posting drop. Meanwhile, the broad based NSE Nifty went down by 239.35 or 3.32% at 6,976.35 with 50 components registering drop.

Major losers in the 30-share index were  Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (6.94%), Bharat Heavy Electricals (6.01%), Tata Motors (5.55%), Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (5.23%), Mahindra & Mahindra (4.93%), and Tata Power Company (4.90%).

On the other hand, Cipla (0.40%), and Dr Reddy'S Laboratories (0.01%)  were the major gainers in the Sensex.

Market breadth was negative with 366 advances against 2,321 declines.

State Bank Of India topped the value chart on the BSE with a turnover of Rs. 1,516.46 million. It was followed by Reliance Industries (Rs. 519.34 million), Wockhardt (Rs. 462.34 million) and Lupin (Rs. 350.48 million).

The volume chart was led by Unitech with trades of over 22.76 million shares. It was followed by Suzlon Energy (16.43 million), State Bank Of India (9.83 million) and Subex (3.61 million).