Washington- The Texas state child-welfare agency went to court Tuesday to seek custody of 417 children removed from a remote compound where an obscure religious sect practiced polygamy.

Texas Child Protective Services Division filed papers in state court, arguing that a "pervasive pattern" of sexual abuse and forced marriage involving underaged girls justified its custody request, the Standard-Times of San Angelo, Texas, reported on its website.

The agency has already removed all 417 children over the last several days from the Yearning For Zion Ranch, in Schleicher County in West Texas, about 300 kilometres north-west of San Antonio. The compound is populated by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints, a renegade branch of the Mormon Church, which has banned polygamy for more than a century.

Another 139 women, many of them mothers rejoining their children, have left the ranch, a protective services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said.

Earlier Tuesday, police announced the arrests of two men in connection with the investigation at the ranch.

Leroy Johnson Steed, 41, and Levi Barlow Jeffs, 19, were arrested Monday on suspicion of tampering with evidence and interfering with state officers. Jeffs was later released on bail.

The investigation was launched in late March, when a 16-year-old girl told a domestic violence shelter that she was forced to marry a middle-aged man, who had beaten and raped her repeatedly over more than a year. She has already given birth to his child and is pregnant by him again.

The alleged husband, Dale Barlow, 50, is now wanted by police and is considered a fugitive.

All the children removed from the ranch have been interviewed by Texas child-protection investigators, and their statements indicate that "there are more victims," Meisner said.

FLDS members began settling the compound about four years ago, mostly moving from mountain states where the sect is based.

The group's leader and self-proclaimed prophet, Warren Jeffs, was convicted last year in Utah of being an accomplice to rape, and was sentenced to 10 years to life in prison. He coerced a 14-year-old girl in an FLDS community there to marry and have sex with her 19- year-old cousin. (dpa)