A section of senior stocks brokers on Thursday demanded that the Securities and Exchange Board of India probe the reasons behind the steep decline in share prices on May 17 by analysing the trade data at the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange and punish the guilty severely.

"There was a deliberate attempt to create panic in the capital market by a few mischievous people and it is the responsibility of Sebi to find out who were these people," a senior NSE broker who earlier held a senior post at the Calcutta Stock Exchange said in Kolkata.

Brokers said, now that the Prime Minister designate Manmohan Singh has clearly stated that it was the responsibility of the Sebi to ascertain the reasons for the slide in BSE and NSE index on 'Black Monday', it should analyse the data at both the exchanges.

• Bloodbath on Dalal Street!

"The guilty must be punished otherwise they will do this in future as well," they said.

Stating that there was a conspiracy to create a crash-like situation in the market, another broker said, "It so happened that as soon as the trading began on Monday, a few people punched sale orders in leading counters at prices, which was much lower than the prevailing rates.

"The motive was not to sell their shares, but to create panic in the market. For example, a few mischievous people (brokers) had punched sale orders at prices as low as Rs 250 when the prevailing price of a particular share was Rs 300 or Rs 298," said another broker.

"Only this had led to about 800 points fall in the BSE index and the closure of trading two times during the day."

That the 'Black Monday' was the outcome of some mischievous people could also be gauged from the reports that institutions were net buyers to the extent of around Rs 800 crore (Rs 8,000 million) on that particular day, brokers said.

FIIs on Monday were net sellers for a marginal Rs 64 crore (Rs 640 million) and one thing was sure that such a huge decline could not have been brought by them, they said.

As for example, FIIs were net sellers throughout the previous week for more than Rs 2,400 crore (Rs 24 billion), but the market did not crash to that extent even for a single day prior to Monday.

Mutual funds were also not believed to be the cause of mayhem as they were net buyers with purchases of about Rs 342 crore (Rs 3.42 billion) worth of equities on May 17 while throughout the previous week they had purchased equities worth Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion).

"Under the circumstances, it is evident that some mischievous people were behind the crash and it is the job of the Sebi to find and punish them," they said.