The hunt is now on for the attacker of the Toyota Corolla owner caught in the anti-Japan madness that took over Xi’an and other parts of China last week.

In this 1 minute 14 sec long video uploaded to the Internet by an eyewitness who was there that fateful day, 51-year-old Xi’an resident Li Jianli is seen trying to ward off a man attacking his Toyota Corolla with what bystanders say was a brick.

“I am also here to protect the Diaoyu Islands,” bystanders heard him say earlier. “I’m also anti-Japanese.”

That was not good enough for his attacker (seen in the video in white).Within seconds, he turned around and struck Li to the ground with the U-shaped steel lock in his hands, and hit him on the head a total of four times, in full view of all the other protestors and gawkers that surrounded them.

Seeing that he had been attacked, Li’s wife shrieked, “Somebody help me! Somebody help me!” as the stunned protestors looked at each other, not knowing what to do, while others whipped out their phones to capture the moment.

While Li’s wife screams for help, hammering sounds are heard in the background as a protestor — it is unclear if this was Li’s attacker — continues to take his anger out on the Toyota off-camera.

After a pregnant pause in the ensuing chaos, one bystander starts screaming at the crowd, “Can we first save this guy? We are all Chinese, have you started to take him for a Japanese?” His calls were echoed by others in the crowd, as people tried calling for an ambulance.

Li would later be rushed to the hospital with the help of a traffic policeman and a taxi driver. He sustained severe concussion from the incident, and now remains under observation in hospital — immobile and unable to speak.

The following pictures of the attacker, put together by eye-witnesses, have gone viral on the internet as netizens call for a “human flesh search” that will see him brought to justice.

Previously on Shanghaiist

Toyota Corolla owner in Xi’an suffers severe concussion in attacks by anti-Japan protestors

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