London, Jan 2 : Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, whose caricature of Prophet Muhammad sparked fury in the Muslim world, escaped death when a knife-wielding Somali man broke into his house in Denmark.

Westergaard was stunned when the 28-year-old intruder tried to kill him in front of his five-year-old granddaughter after barging into his house in the western city of Aarhus late Friday, BBC reported.

The report said the cartoonist ran into a specially designed room with the granddaughter and raised an alarm, following which police entered and shot the man, seriously wounding him.