Closing bell: The Indian equity benchmarks ended lower on Friday dragged down by weakness in index heavyweights like Mahindra & Mahindra, Reliance Industries, Infosys, ICICI Bank, Larsen & Toubro and Tata Motors. The Sensex fell as much as 613 points and Nifty 50 index dropped below its important psychological level of 22,000. The selloff was especially intense in mid-cap and small-cap shares as stress test results undertaken by mutual funds started coming in.

The Sensex ended 454 points lower at 72,643 and Nifty 50 index declined 148 points to close at 21,998.

Stress results posted by WhiteOak showed that its WhiteOak Midcap Fund, which has assets under management worth Rs 1,626 crore, will take 0.68 days to liquidate 50 per cent of the portfolio and 0.34 days to liquidate 25 per cent of the portfolio.

Stress test by Edelweiss Mid Cap Fund showed that it will take the fund house two days to liquidate 50 per cent of the portfolio and one day to liquidate 25 per cent of the portfolio. Likewise, Edelweiss Small Cap Fund, which has AUM of Rs 3,189.90 crore, will take three days to liquidate 50 per cent of the portfolio and two days to liquidate 25 per cent of the portfolio.

Meanwhile, selling pressure was broad-based as all the major sector gauges, barring the measure of FMCG shares, ended lower led by Nifty Oil & Gas index's over 4 per cent fall after government announced petrol and diesel price cut by Rs 2 per litre.

Banking, auto, financial services, information technology, media, metal, pharma, PSU bank and healthcare indices fell over 1 per cent each.

Mid- and small-cap shares faced the heat of intense selling pressure amid stress test results. Nifty Midcap 100 index dropped 1.6 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index fell 1.2 per cent.

Bharat Petroleum was among the top Nifty loser, the stock fell 4 per cent to Rs 583 after government announced petrol and diesel price cut.

Coal India, ONGC, NTPC, Hero MotoCorp, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bajaj Auto, Power Grid, State Bank of India and Tata Motors also fell between 2-5 per cent.

On the flipside, UPL, ITC, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Finance, HDFC Life and Britannia were among the notable gainers.

The overall market breadth was extremely negative as 2,019 shares were trading lower while 1,803 were advancing on the BSE.