New Delhi, Mar 15 (IANS): Rising inflation along with expensive valuations pulled India's key equity indices deep into the red during Monday's late afternoon trade session.

Accordingly, the key indices -- Sensex and Nifty -- traded below their psychological thresholds of 50,000 and 14,850, respectively, in the afternoon session, as bears kept a tight grip on the market.

Besides, a surge in Covid-19 cases also dampened traders' spirits.

Furthermore, FPIs became net sellers in the Indian markets this month, to the tune of Rs 7,013 crore, on profit-booking due to global market jitters.

Apart from the IT space, all the sectors showed weakness among which Banks, Financial Services, Media and Pharma.

Consequently, the S&P BSE Sensex at 2.15 p.m. was down by 783.79 points, or 1.54 per cent, to 50,008.29 points from the previous close.

The NSE Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange closed at 14,814.90, down by 216.05 points, or 1.44 per cent, from its previous close.

"Despite favourable global cues at opening, our market is showing weakness and moving below 14800 levels," said Jay Purohit, Technical & Derivatives Analyst, MOFSL.

"The advance decline ratio is overpowered by the declining counters. Bank Nifty breached key support of 34500 as banking stocks trade in red. We are witnessing a range breakdown in banking index, which doesn't bode well for the bulls."

According to Likhita Chepa, Senior Research Analyst at CapitalVia: "The market's nearest support would be 14,700-14,720 in a short period of time."

"Top gainers on Nifty were JSWSTEEL, POWERGRID, TECHM, TATASTEEL and HCLTECH. AXISBANK, DIVISLAB, BAJFINANCE were among the top losers."