DHAKA (AFP) -- Security forces arrested two more political leaders on corruption allegations, including an outgoing government minister, as 19 others were remanded in custody for a month, officials said Tuesday.

"Joint forces arrested former forests minister of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government, Tariqul Islam, from his residence in (western) Jessore district," said a court official.

Former BNP lawmaker Rashiduzzaman Millat was also detained, a Dhaka police official said.

The arrests late Sunday were not previously disclosed. Nineteen others, including eight former ministers, who were arrested on Sunday, appeared in court in Dhaka on Monday.

Flanked by police, they were led from two minibuses into the magistrates court through a scrum of onlookers, photographers and police in riot gear.

Some of the leaders, including the outgoing government's communications minister Nazmul Huda, waved to supporters.

Bail was refused during the three-hour hearing and the high-profile detainees were remanded in custody for 30 days and sent to the capital's main jail, defense lawyer Abdul Baten told AFP.

A Dhaka Central Jail official, however, told AFP the men were being given special treatment during their detention.

"The political leaders have been put in classified cells, which is for those who lead a better life outside jail and where the food is comparatively good," he said.

Nine were being held in one large cell and ten in another. Each cell would normally hold up to 60 prisoners, the official added.

The detained leaders -- who have links to both the outgoing BNP-led government and the main opposition Awami League -- were arrested as part of a crackdown on graft by the country's new interim government.

The military-backed government's anti-corruption drive is part of an effort to win the confidence of all political parties in order to hold credible elections.

Bangladesh is one of the world's most corrupt countries, according to anti-graft watchdog Transparency International.

"The success of the current government to rid the country of the corrupt depends on how successful it is in demolishing the possibility of (a) future nexus between the corrupt politicians, businessmen and the bureaucrats," the leading Daily Star newspaper said in an editorial Monday.

Cleansing the country of the corruption in which it is "so inexorably mired" was a tall order but the arrests were a good start, it added.

Polls scheduled for January 22 were cancelled following months of violent protests over opposition allegations of poll rigging.

At least 35 people were killed in unrest after BNP Prime Minister Khaleda Zia handed power to the first interim government in late October.

At the same time as canceling the polls, which the Awami League was set to boycott, President Iajuddin Ahmed on January 11 also stepped down as head of the temporary government and imposed a state of emergency.

He was replaced as interim government head by former central bank governor Fakhruddin Ahmed.