Error while automating Jmeter Script : Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException

Question

I am trying to automate a JMeter script using java code.

loadTree() seems not to be working and throwing null pointer exception.

My Java class is :

package com.apache.maven;

import java.io.FileInputStream;

import org.apache.jmeter.engine.StandardJMeterEngine;
import org.apache.jmeter.save.SaveService;
import org.apache.jmeter.util.JMeterUtils;
import org.apache.jorphan.collections.HashTree;

public class ApacheMaven {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub

        StandardJMeterEngine jmeter = new StandardJMeterEngine();

        JMeterUtils.loadJMeterProperties("F:/apache-jmeter-5.3/bin/jmeter.properties");
        JMeterUtils.setJMeterHome("F:/apache-jmeter-5.3");
        JMeterUtils.initLocale();
        JMeterUtils.initLogging();

        SaveService.loadProperties();

        FileInputStream in = new FileInputStream(
                "F:\\apache-maven-3.6.3\\bin\\apache-maven\\src\\test\\jmeter\\PlanPackage.jmx");

        HashTree testPlanTree = SaveService.loadTree(in);
        in.close();

        jmeter.configure(testPlanTree);
        jmeter.run();

    }

}

My pom.xml :

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
  <groupId>apache-maven-integration</groupId>
  <artifactId>apache-maven-integration</artifactId>
  <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <dependencies>
        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.apache.maven.plugins/maven-dependency-plugin -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>3.1.1</version>
        </dependency>
        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.apache.jmeter/ApacheJMeter_core -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.jmeter</groupId>
            <artifactId>ApacheJMeter_core</artifactId>
            <version>2.6</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>junit</groupId>
            <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
            <version>3.8.1</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.slf4j/slf4j-simple -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
            <artifactId>slf4j-simple</artifactId>
            <version>2.0.0-alpha1</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.slf4j/slf4j-log4j12 -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
            <artifactId>slf4j-log4j12</artifactId>
            <version>2.0.0-alpha1</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.slf4j/slf4j-api -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
            <artifactId>slf4j-api</artifactId>
            <version>2.0.0-alpha1</version>
        </dependency>
        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.apache.logging.log4j/log4j-slf4j-impl -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>
            <artifactId>log4j-slf4j-impl</artifactId>
            <version>2.13.3</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>com.lazerycode.jmeter</groupId>
                <artifactId>jmeter-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.1.0</version>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
                <artifactId>exec-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>1.2.1</version>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>java</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
                <configuration>
                    <mainClass>com.apache.maven.ApacheMaven</mainClass>
                    <arguments>
                        <argument>foo</argument>
                        <argument>bar</argument>
                    </arguments>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

I am getting the following error while running the code :

INFO 2020-07-22 10:29:38.355 [jmeter.e] (): Listeners will be started after enabling running version

INFO    2020-07-22 10:29:38.556 [jmeter.e] (): To revert to the earlier behaviour, define jmeterengine.startlistenerslater=false
INFO    2020-07-22 10:29:38.601 [jmeter.u] (): Setting Locale to en_US

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException at org.apache.jmeter.engine.StandardJMeterEngine.configure(StandardJMeterEngine.java:176)
at com.apache.maven.ApacheMaven.main(ApacheMaven.java:30)

Can anyone please help me with this.