Trigger sortstart event manually Jquery ui

I am using Jquery UI sortable plugin for sorting a list. I want to trigger the sortstart event on one of the elements in the list manually. I tried using the below code but it didn't work.

let element = $(selector);
let event = jQuery.Event("sortstart"); // also tried with jQuery.Event("mousedown")
element.trigger(event);

Is there a way to trigger the sortstart event manually?

Thanks.