Metro

Homeowner fights off gun-toting thugs

Ghulam Ghaus Khan's home in Ozone Park.

Ghulam Ghaus Khan’s home in Ozone Park. (Elis Kaplan)

A fearless, unarmed homeowner went toe-to-toe with a pair of gun-toting thugs who busted in at 3 a.m. today — and when the dust settled, his family was safe and one of the perps had a bullet in his leg.

Ghulam Khanlodhy, 42, of Ozone Park, jumped into action when the masked men appeared in his dark bedroom, demanding gold jewelry from him and his terrified wife.

One of the men held a gun to his wife’s head as the other held him down.

Khanlodhy told The Post that his wife’s screams prompted him to take on the armed men, making a grab for the gun as one robber tried to pass his weapon to his partner.

“My mind said ‘Grab it,'” Khanlodhy said.

Khanlodhy managed to gain control of the gun, but his point-blank shot at one suspect misfired.

As the first man kicked out the glass of a bedroom window and ran for his life, the second suspect also tried to escape the much smaller Khanlodhy.

Undetered, Khanlodhy then tackled the man from behind, wrapping him in a headlock. In the struggle, the gun went off twice, hitting the suspect in the leg.

The leather wholesaler then tossed the gun out the window and, with his wife’s help, held the bleeding man on the bedroom floor for more than 20 minutes before police arrived.

Khanlodhy said at one point he demanded that his step-son, Vinood Tillack, 26, who ran from his bedroom, get a knife from the kitchen.

“He says ‘No, we don’t want to kill him,’” he said. “I said ‘He was going to kill us.’”

Four children who were upstairs with Khanlodhy’s in-laws were not injured.

Khanlodhy showed off a trophy from the struggle: Perfectly formed bite marks on one bicep, where the gunman gnawed into his arm during the fight.

Khanlodhy’s wife, Zarinie, believes the family was targeted for her large cache of gold jewelry, including a thick gold chain she wears even to bed.

“He saved my life,” she said of her husband. “If he was not home, I know I would be dead right now.”

Police said the injured suspect is in custody at Jamaica Hospital, and being treated for a gunshot to the thigh. Charges are still being prepared. The second suspect is still on the loose.