Email Sending and Validation Failing in Laravel 5.4 - validation

Question

I am creating a contact form using bootstrap3 build on Laravel 5.4. When I click the submit button, I expect an email to be sent to my inbox or if there are errors they should be validated on the back end and errors displayed at the top of the form. I am using Laravel collective to build the form, when I fill the form and click the submit button, the page only reloads and no validation happens or in case of correct input no email is sent. Please assist?
Form Section
<div class="col-sm-4 wow animated fadeInLeft">
<div id="success" class="col-sm-12">
#if(Session::has('success'))
<span class="alert alert-success" role="alert">
<strong> Success: </strong> {{ Session::get('success') }}
</span>
#endif
#if(count($errors) > 0)
<span class="alert alert-danger" role="alert">
<strong> Errors: </strong>
<ul>
#foreach($errors->all() as $error)
<li> {{ $error }} </li>
#endforeach
</ul>
</span>
#endif
</div>
{!! Form::open(array('route' => 'index.post', 'method' => 'POST','class' => 'contact-form')) !!}
{{ Form::text('name', null, array( 'placeholder' => 'Name...', 'class' => 'input', 'required' => ''))}}
{{ Form::email('email', null, array('placeholder' => 'Email Address...','class' => 'input', 'required' => ''))}}
{{ Form::textarea('message', null, array('placeholder' => 'Message...', 'class' => '', 'required' => 'input')) }}
{{ Form::submit('Submit') }}
{!! Form::close() !!}
</div>
Routes File
Route::post('/', 'PagesController#postIndex') ->name('index.post');
Route::get('/', 'PagesController#getIndex') ->name('pages.index');
PagesController
public function postIndex(Request $request){
$this->validate($request, array(
'name' => 'required|min:10',
'email' => 'required|email',
'message' => 'required|min:100'
));
$name = $request->name;
$data = array(
'name' => $request->name,
'email' => $request->email,
'bodymessage' => $request->message
);
Mail::send('emails.contact', $data, function($message) use ($data) {
$message->from($data['email']);
$message->to('info#pwebk.com');
});
Session::flash('success', 'Hello '.$name.', Your Form was successfully sent');
return redirect()->route('pages.index');
}
public function getIndex(){
return view('pages.welcome');
}