Relatives of a student detained by police last month say they have heard nothing of her whereabouts since she disappeared. Liu Di, 22, a final-year psychology student from Beijing Normal University who was known to be a prolific poster on Internet chatrooms, went missing on November 7. Her family only discovered she had been apprehended by the authorities when police from Beijing municipal public security bureau searched her home and took away her books, notebook, floppy discs and a computer belonging to her father. However, her family has not been told where she is being held or the reasons for her detention. Family members suspect she is being held for the critical articles she wrote, posted on the Web under the pen name 'stainless-steel rat'. The girl's father, Liu Qinghua, said family members who had gone to the police station to see if they could visit the girl and take her a change of clothes were turned away. Officials from the university told Mr Liu that his daughter had been detained for her links to an illegal organisation. However, her father said they were merely referring to her online penpals. 'I am very puzzled because it seems that her penpals have not got into trouble and some of them even visited us to find out what happened to her,' Mr Liu said. 'If it really is an illegal organisation, she should not be the only person to be arrested.' Mr Liu said he was considering seeking legal advice because a lack of information from the authorities meant he did not even know which department he should contact about his daughter's plight. Officials from the university had told him to wait, he said. The girl's grandmother, Liu Heng, a former reporter for the People's Daily, said she feared the girl might not survive her time in detention as she was in poor health. Liu Heng, an outspoken reporter, was imprisoned for more than two decades during the Cultural Revolution after being convicted of being a 'stubborn rightist'. She said her granddaughter was a quiet girl who spent much of her time reading and it was unlikely that she had joined any illegal organisation. While many Internet chatrooms have been shut down as part of a police crackdown on subversive activities, some of Liu's penpals have published articles via overseas chatrooms challenging the grounds of her detention. Some frequent posters on Chinese Web sites - who somehow manage to find a way around blocks on Web sites deemed controversial by authorities and numerous other cyber-controls - posted messages saying that although Liu wrote blunt articles, they were surprised such a young girl, who was a 'nobody' in the eyes of other seasoned writers on the Web, would have crossed the authorities.