INQUEST | A firefighter down on the ground leaned against a car bumper, surrounded by over two dozen people.

"Don't hit!" some in the crowd shouted in Tamil. Another exclaimed: "They even beat firefighters."

That was the scene during the Seafield temple riots last November as described by contractor N Suresh.

Suresh is the eighth witness in the inquest to determine firefighter Muhammad Adib Mohd Kassim's cause of death.

He had gone to the Seafield temple with seven others to show support for the place of worship.

When firefighters arrived, he said a group of people had rushed to attack them.

It was during that commotion that he heard 20-30 people shouting "don't hit".

“I went closer to see what was happening and I saw someone on the ground, leaning against a car bumper.

“I couldn’t see clearly as the place was dark," he was quoted as saying by The Malaysian Insight.

Suresh said he had actually fallen at the feet of the firefighter during a commotion in which the crowd was shoving one another.

“I then noticed that the person was wearing a firefighter's outfit," he said.

Suresh then relayed the incident to his friend, claiming that the firefighter had been beaten based on what he had heard.

He later saw the firefighter being whisked away, shirtless and shoeless.

The inquest's fourth witness, Amirrul Adli M Yussli, previously testified that he spotted an injured firefighter sitting on the kerb and a group of men who assisted him.

Amirrul said the men had asked if he could help drive the firefighter to a hospital, but he could not, as his car door was damaged when the fire truck and Emergency Medical Rescue Services van reversed to escape the mob.