How can I remove the (place-) prefix in this mod_rewrite code as it gets appended to every url that is generated e.g http://localhost/place-Srinagar.html while as I want it to be http://localhost/Srinagar.html
RewriteRule ^place-(.*).html$ ./places_pro.php?url=$1
Your code sample is a bit misleading. If you want to just remove "place-" from the beginning of all URLs you can do this:
RewriteRule ^place-(.*)$ $1 [L]
The [L] tag ensures that it's the last rewrite rule applied. No subsequent rules will be applied.