Benchmark equity indices declined in early trade on Thursday amid heavy foreign fund outflows and selling in Reliance Industries and Tata Consultancy Services.

Declining for the third day running, the 30-share BSE Sensex dropped 209.6 points to 73,256.79. The NSE Nifty dipped 77.7 points to 22,224.80.

From the Sensex basket, Larsen & Toubro went lower by over 3 per cent after March quarter earnings.

Tata Consultancy Services, Tech Mahindra, ITC, Bajaj Finserv, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Industries were the other laggards.

Mahindra & Mahindra, Titan, Maruti and Tata Motors were among the gainers.

"A major trend in the market now is the aggressive selling by FIIs, which has touched Rs 15,863 crore so far this month. It is important to understand that there is a new factor triggering FII selling, apart from the high US bond yields. This is the outperformance of the Chinese and Hong Kong markets," said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 6,669.10 crore on Wednesday, according to exchange data.

In Asian markets, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong were trading with gains while Seoul traded lower.

Wall Street ended on a mixed note on Wednesday.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude climbed 0.43 per cent to USD 83.94 a barrel.

The 30-share BSE Sensex declined 45.46 points or 0.06 per cent to settle at 73,466.39 on Wednesday. The NSE Nifty remained unchanged at 22,302.50.

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