New Delhi, Nov 24 (IANS) Delhiites were caught in serpentine jams Tuesday when a religious procession in the heart of the national capital choked main roads and the subsequent detours weren't enough to cope with heavy evening traffic.

The procession for the Guru Teg Bahadur martyrdom procession started at 9.30 a.m. from Gurdwara Sis Ganj in old Delhi's Chandni Chowk area. It was to terminate at Gurdwara Rakab Ganj near Parliament Street in central Delhi.

But even late in the evening the procession was far from over, spelling disaster for traffic officials as cars piled up choc-a-bloc in the evening hours. Commuters were stuck for hours.

'I am stuck for the last 40 minutes on Shanti Path, which is normally a free road. The traffic here is not moving at all. People stuck on buses have gotten off and started walking as there is no place for even a cycle to slither out,' said Kritika Vyavahare, a college student.

Hema Singh, a school teacher, said: 'After being stuck for a long time in the traffic jam on my way to the nearest Metro station, I finally had to walk for nearly three kilometers.'

Places like Shanti Path, Teen Murti Marg, Chanakya Puri, Connaught Place, the India Gate roundabout and other places in Lutyen's Delhi, which is the better planned part of the capital, had bumper-to-bumper traffic which was hardly moving.

The traffic police had issued an advisory a day earlier asking the public to avoid the procession route. However, they did not anticipate the situation to get so difficult.

'Although the head of the procession reached its destination, the tail is still at the start point. The entire route is blocked. It will take four to five more hours for things to normalise and clear,' a senior traffic official told IANS.