Broad roads, palatial havelis bordering wheat fields and freshly acquired affluence. Welcome to the NRI belt of Punjab where all roads lead out of the country.

In the villages of the Doaba (comprising Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Nawanshahr and Kapurthala), every family aspires to send its son or daughter abroad. Many have succeeded and it’s their money that is slowly transforming Punjab’s rural landscape.

In rural Hoshiarpur and Jalandhar, for instance, the bungalows and havelis of the NRIs are eye-catching. Some flaunt concrete models of planes on their roofs, others have gone for falcons and footballs. The havelis are empty for most of the year. But once or twice every year, the NRIs visit their homes, driving up in their flashy cars, laden with gifts.

Other buildings are coming up fast. Western Union outlets, financing companies and travel agencies. And somewhere among these spiralling constructions, a few single-storey houses stand out like aberrations. Houses, perhaps, of families who couldn’t send any of their members abroad.

It was in this land of kaboortarbazi, as the immigration racket in Punjab is called, that the Delhi Police came calling last Thursday. The team visited three Hoshiarpur villages, nestling Tanda town. They were probing the case of BJP MP Babubhai Katara, who was caught at the Indira Gandhi Airport, boarding a flight to Toronto along with Paramjeet Kaur from Talli village who was posing as his wife and 14-year-old Amarjeet Singh from Jalalpur, who was impersonating his son. They also visited Salempur village, looking for a “travel agent” called Santu.

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