Famed India-born sculptor Madan Gopal, whose creations included the statues of the Mighty Sparrow, Mahatma Gandhi, and images of Hindu gods across Trinidad, died on Sunday after being set on fire.

Gopal, who laboured for years to build a house known as the ’stone castle’, ended up homeless on the streets of Chaguanas months ago, the result relatives said, of a long descent into alcoholism.

Gopal, 66, died shortly after midnight at the Seventh Day Community Hospital, Cocorite, where he was being treated for burns covering the face, chest and arms.

He reportedly named the person who set him alight, before his death.

On the morning of November 7, Gopal was found lying in the balcony of his ’castle’ at Trainline Road, Endeavour, where he had lived with wife Sumati Sawh.

Sawh, 39, said they separated earlier in the year.

She said, ’He didn’t want to stop drinking. He didn’t want to go to rehab. We argued so much that we broke up and he left.’

She said Gopal would visit often but would not stay the night because of his drunken state.

Sawh said the morning he was found, she heard Gopal calling her at the home, but did not respond because she thought he was intoxicated.

The alcoholism, she said, was fuelled by a depression that came when the castle home he spent decades building, and which was once an official tourism site, was put up for sale by a credit union.

Gopal, who once owned a chain of stores that sold pottery and ceramic figures, died poor, said relatives.

As to why someone would burn Gopal, Sawh said, ’It is a painful thing to accept. But he was a man who when he drank could be abusive to people.’

Gopal came to Trinidad with a brother from the slums of Old Delhi, India, and the two were famous for their work sculpting statues of Hindu deities at temples across the country.

Sawh said Gopal also worked in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and Guyana, married twice before, but fathered no children.

Gopal was responsible for the life-sized statue of the Mighty Sparrow at the St Ann’s roundabout, a bust of Dr Joao Havelange at the Centre of Excellence, in Macoya and the larger-than-life statues of Lord Shiva at the Divali Nagar and Temple in the Sea, Waterloo. Gopal lost everything except his talent, said Sawh.

In the final months of his life, he worked on murtis at a temple at Monroe Road.

An autopsy will be performed today.

Southern Division Homicide officers are investigating the case.