Error when the square brackets are missed at the start of an element or a group

When the square brackets are missing or commented out at the start of an element or a group as shown below, one gets an error
'Access obj "VAR" for dm "DUMMYGROUP" not found'

;[]
VAR->OTTargetSuccessful = "Yes"
PERFORM("OTTrgEnd")

}*0 .. 1 ;; |-- end DUMMYGROUP --|