Mumbai, Sept. 28 -- The key equity benchmarks remained under pressure in the early afternoon session on Monday, weighed down by weak global cues, rising crude oil prices and weakness in global technology stocks amid concerns over the reliability and safety of AI agents. The Nifty traded below the 23,000 level.

Investors remained focused on crude oil price movements, developments in the primary market and upcoming initial public offerings (IPOs). A series of domestic and global economic data releases due during the week are also expected to influence market expectations around monetary policy decisions by central banks.

At 12:25 IST, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 917.53 points, or 1.24%, at 72,978.21. The Nifty 50 index was down 292.35 poi...