{We aim to investigate the prompt emission and afterglow properties of short-duration GRBs including GRB 130603B and other events observed during 2012-2015.}
{Multi-wavelength prompt emission and afterglow data of total eight short duration gamma-ray bursts were calibrated to study the temporal and spectral properties.}
{Earliest ground-based optical photometry, millimeter-wavelength observations and spectroscopy of GRB 130603B and multi-band data of other seven short duration bursts were used to constrain the nature of these energetic explosions.}
{For GRB 130603B, the new data including the earliest photometric observations and the published ones broadly follow the ISM afterglow model. Modeling of the host galaxy of this burst using LePHARE model supports that the environment of this burst is undergoing with moderate star formation activity. Our observations support the requirement for rather early and deeper multi-band observations of many of these events to detect the afterglow or to constrain the possible blue emission from associated ``kilonovae'.}