Police have shifted their investigation away from the stepfather and onto the biological father of the 17-year-old girl who attempted to take her own life after an alleged rape effectively ended her engagement.

According to Dangkor district police chief Yim Saran, the young girl’s mother said during questioning Sunday night that the girl had been raped by her biological father – a policeman in Kandal province’s Takhmao district – and not her stepfather, despite the girl’s ex-fiancé’s prior claims to the contrary.

“The accused natural father is on the run from the police search,” said Saran. “He cannot, however, escape from the law, and we will continue searching for him.”

The girl’s mother, 33, who asked to be identified only as Kunthea, said that news of her daughter’s attempted suicide came as a surprise while she and her current husband, the girl’s stepfather, were in Preah Sihanouk province.

Kunthea said her daughter had told her about the rape before, but she had dismissed the story, thinking it couldn’t be true.

“It is very difficult for me to tell what exactly happened between my husband and daughter, and now I still don’t know whether she is pregnant,” she said.

On Sunday, the girl’s ex-fiancé – whose family forbid him from marrying her after news of the rape surfaced – pointed to the girl’s stepfather as the culprit, saying she attempted suicide via pill overdose only after Kunthea failed to divorce the man, despite having said she would do so as long as the victim didn’t involve the authorities.

As of yesterday, the girl was still unconscious.