The pandemonium that erupted in India's Upper House of Parliament yesterday is perhaps a sign of what is to come on the streets of Kashmir in the next few weeks.

"No one in the world, however intelligent or knowledgeable about Kashmiri affairs, would have expected that all our worst fears would come true in a single day, in a few hours," said Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad, a Congress politician from the conflict-ridden state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) who is head of the opposition in India's Lower House of Parliament.