Mumbai, Sep 8 (IANS): The Indian stock market witnessed a volatile session on Tuesday, as the indices surged after a choppy and subdued start to the day's trade, but ended up falling back into the negative territory.

Heavy selling was witnessed across sectors led by telecom and metal stocks. The BSE Telecom index was down 4.01 per cent and the Metal index fell 2.96 per cent.

The BSE Sensex closed at 38,365.35, lower by 51.88 points, or 0.14 per cent, from the previous close of 38,417.23.

It had opened at 38,498.07 and touched an intra-day high of 38,746.48 and a low of 8,275.45 points.

The Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange closed at 11,317.35, lower by 37.70 points, or 0.33 per cent, from its previous close.

Siddhartha Khemka, Head of Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services, said: "Indian equity markets opened positive, but drifted sharply in red in the last one hour of the session, due to rising geo-political tensions between India-China."

He added that going ahead, the market would continue consolidating in near term and would remain subdued till the India-China border tensions subside.

"Any weakness in the market should be looked as a buying opportunity to add quality stocks in the portfolio as the overall long-term market trend remains positive," Khemka added.