London: A Hindu worker at Heathrow Airport has lost her job for wearing a tiny nose stud.

"I am extremely upset by this and feel that I am being discriminated against. I had always made it clear that I wear it as part of my Hindu faith. I'm not expecting people to make huge exceptions for me and I could understand if I was wearing a massive stud but this is a tiny pin.

"It was so small it was almost impossible to see. I was completely happy to wear all the uniform. I'm just asking for a little bit of tolerance and common sense over me wearing a nose stud," the Daily Mail reported on Tuesday, quoting 43-year-old Amrit Lalji, a mother of three, as saying.

Lalji from Stanmore in North-West London was a cleaner and customer relations worker for Eurest which supplies food and services to British Airway's VIP lounge at Heathrow. Her job involved greeting first-class passengers at the lounge.

She had worn the stud without any complaints from customers since she started work in March last year. But, last month she was told by bosses at Eurest that a BA manager had ordered her to remove it or lose her job. She was fired last week after a disciplinary hearing.