The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection has taken up the case in which an 11-year-old boy was set ablaze by a 29-year-old mason for allegedly peeping at a woman in the bathroom.

The ministry intervened after Class91.3FM first broke the story which sparked national outrage.

Class FM’s Upper East regional correspondent, William Jalulah, who first broke the heart-wrenching story said the victim, Maxwell Ayinbisa, is still nursing his wounds of over one-year-old, which he sustained after the suspect doused him with petrol and set him ablaze.

On 24 November 2017, Ayinbisa and two of his friends were sent to buy petrol from a fuel station.

According to Ayinbisa, on their way from the errand, a man accused him and his friends of peeping at a woman in a bathroom.

The little boy said his friends fled the scene and left him behind. He was grabbed by his accuser, Nsobila John, who wrenched the gallon of petrol from him, doused him with the fuel and struck a match at him.

The father of the victim, Mustapha Rahamani told Class News that the suspect, after taking care of the initial medical bills of the boy, abandoned him.

The Bolgatanga Municipal Police Commander, Chief Superintendent Samuel Punobyin told Jalulah that the families of the victim and the suspect had reached an agreement to settle the matter out of court as of the time the incident happened. The suspect’s family also promised to cater for the little boy’s medical bills but defaulted along the line.

Speaking on the matter on Tuesday, 12 February 2019, Deputy Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Gifty Twum Ampofo, told Executive Breakfast Show Benjamin Akakpo on Class FM that: “We are collaborating with the Social Welfare officers in the region and the district far in the Upper East Region”.

She said the ministry was expecting feedback from the officials by the close of next week Monday.

Ms Ampofo added that: “When the man stopped footing the medical bills of Maxwell, the parents should have gone back to the police” for prosecution since they already had the docket.

She said the issue would have gotten to the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) which would have, in turn, contacted the Social Welfare Department to have the victim registered for the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) under a certain category “where they don’t pay any premium at all” for the treatment of the wounds.